Grey goo, grey goo, it’s here for me and you! Devours our flesh, intestines its nest, it’s coming! It’s coming! No one’s safe, so turn and face our oncoming nanotech disaster.

By which I mean, obviously, that Petroglyph have bunged a fourth faction and new units into their RTS Grey Goo [official site] with a free expansion. The Shroud have arrived, and everyone’s cacking themselves. And hey, the whole game’s now cheaper too.

“Many Shroud units and structures can change on the fly, evolving into more powerful versions of themselves,” the devs say. “For example, the Shroud’s Epic unit, the Dirge, has three stages. While the first is relatively weak, its final form can end a game in a matter of minutes.”

They also field shape-shifters who can slip into enemy ranks, and units which break the rules of RTS visual design. I do really like this:

“Catching an opponent off guard is a key aspect of the Shroud’s strategy—and the Klaxon is a unit that’s designed to do just that. While it looks like a slow-moving armored unit, the Klaxon can actually charge at and damage your units in a split-second.”

RTS games tend to follow broad rules of visual design hinting at a unit’s function. Something big will likely be slow but tanky and likely deadly, something teeny will be fast but squishable, and so on. The idea of purposely designing against that, trying to catch players off guard by breaking the rules, is pretty cool.

The Shroud are introduced in one new single-player campaign mission, but are themselves playable in multiplayer and AI skirmish modes. The three original races have all received one new unit too.

Also! Grey Goo has relaunched as Grey Goo Definitive Edition, which includes all DLC and comes at a lower price. The Definitive Edition is £22.99/$29.99/€27.99, down from the original release’s price of £29.99/$49.99/€45.99. ‘s on Steam if you fancy it.

Lastly, a trailer peeking at The Shroud:



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