AETHERLUNE Play the alpha
A Lanternbearer climbs the Grand Stair to the Lune Engine at night: a drum of lit ports inside three glowing rings around a shard of light, lamps along the terrace, and the broken moon over the city.

Online alpha · invite only · Windows

Aetherlune

An HD-2D action MMO under a broken moon. Pixel-art heroes in a lantern-lit world, and fights that answer every press.

Play the alpha See it move

Four classes · three wild zones and a dungeon · a raid for four · up to 100 players in one world

Lanternmere grew up around an Engine nobody remembers building. It was already running when the first families arrived, and the beasts kept their distance from its light. So they built a city in that light, and hung a lantern in every street to be sure.

You are a Lanternbearer. The Wardens send you out past the last lamp: into Whisperwood, along Saltglass Shore, down into the Gearvault beneath the city, where the ticking never stops.

The moon hangs in three pieces. Most nights, nobody looks up.

  • 4classes, each with eight skills, an ultimate among them, and four trait choices
  • 5districts of a city built around the Lune Engine
  • 4places beyond the lamps, from the first glade to the Trial of the Moon
  • 60frames a second of combat, on the server and on your screen
  • 100players in one shared world during the alpha

Lanternmere

The City of the Broken Moon

Every street is lit, every district has its own weather of light: the Engine's cold blue over the Heights, gas-lamp gold on the square, the Vale's flower-fire reflected in still water. Walk it, and it walks back.

Lanternmere from the hills in the rain: thousands of lit windows, the clock tower's glowing face, and the Engine's rings shining at the heart of the city.

Lanternmere from the hills

Rain on ten thousand windows, and the Engine's light at the heart of it all.

Lantern Square at night: the Moonwell fountain under a turning armillary, lamps and string lights around it.

Lantern Square

The Moonwell, the Brass Lantern, Fenn's tonics.

The Mirrormere in Lanternbloom Vale: a lamp-lit jetty over dark water, flower beds glowing pink and blue beyond.

The Mirrormere

Lanternbloom Vale. The water shows the moon whole.

Brannoc's forge in the Artisans' Ward at night: forge-glow under a timber shelter, string lights over the yard.

Brannoc's Forge

The Artisans' Ward. Gear up to +10; it never breaks.

The Milk and Honey House on its hill: a lit timber manor above terraced gardens and lanterns.

The Milk & Honey House

Up the hill in the Vale. The stage wheel is always turning.

The canal promenade: tall townhouses with warm windows and a striped awning above a cobbled quay.

The Moonwater Canal

Between the square and the Vale. Mind the water.

Lantern SquareLune HeightsLanternbloom ValeThe Artisans' WardRootward

Four ways to fight

Choose how you answer the dark

Every class plays differently all the way down: its own resource, its own rhythm, a signature mechanic you learn in the first minute and master in the fiftieth. Rank skills, pick traits, and forge your gear to fit.

A Moonblade mid-draw in a glowing mushroom forest, a crescent of blue light sweeping from the blade.

Melee · Iaijutsu

Moonblade

A duelist of the drawn blade. Strike from the sheath for crushing draws, build Resolve with every cut, and answer blows with perfect parries.

Weapon
Katana
Resource
Resolve
Mirror ParryIaido: FlashstepTsukuyomi
A Shadowstep with twin daggers standing in an enemy's red warning zone, spore clouds bursting around them.

Melee · Assassin

Shadowstep

Lightning-quick twin blades. Mark your prey, strike from behind for brutal critical hits, vanish into smoke and detonate every mark at once.

Weapon
Twin daggers
Resource
Ki
Shadow StepSmoke VeilThousand Cuts
An Aetherist raising an orrery stave inside a circle of runes, a pillar of pale light around them.

Ranged · Elemental

Aetherist

A scholar of the Lune Engine. Weave Ember, Frost and Volt into a three-strand pattern, then release it as a Convergence whose shape depends on the weave.

Weapon
Orrery stave
Resource
Aether
ConvergenceGravity WellStarfall Cascade
A Muse with pink war fans in a golden ring of light, dancing on the beat.

Support · Rhythm

Muse

A war-dancer of the aurora. Strike on the beat to build Crescendo, sing songs that empower the whole party, and end the dance in a storm of petals.

Weapon
War fans
Resource
Harmony
Song of ValorEncoreAurora Waltz

Beyond the lamps

Where the light runs out

Past the West Gate the forest glows on its own. Past the East Docks the tide comes in pink. Under the Heights the city keeps its oldest machinery, and something in it is still keeping time.

Whisperwood: an ancient tree hung with pale blossom over a carpet of blue and pink flowers, fireflies everywhere. Level 1+

Whisperwood

Where the moonlight takes root

Mushroom groves, the Old Watch, and the Mycelord in the Heartgrove.

Saltglass Shore at sunset: a golden beach, a pink sea, a fighter surrounded by crab-like creatures. Level 8+

Saltglass Shore

Where the sea keeps what the moon lost

The Tidepool Flats, a chapel the reef swallowed, and whatever waits in Shipwreck Cove.

The Gearvault's Furnace Hall: three glowing furnace doors throw orange light across a tiled floor. Level 15+ · party

Gearvault Depths

The ticking beneath the city

Sealed halls that lock behind you, one run per party, and the Engine Core at the bottom.

A round dais ringed with glowing runes, floating in a starfield, a lone figure at its heart and a blade of light sweeping across it. Raid · level 20 · 1–4

The Trial of the Moon

Beyond the door in the Engine's drum

The end of the main story. Bring your party, keep the beat. Opens online in a coming update.

A vast willow of pale light over a still lake at night, a swing hanging from one branch, an aurora on the horizon.
“No matter what happens now, we can't ever forget each other.”From the opening of the game

Combat that answers

Every press lands on the frame you pressed it

Frame-data combat at sixty frames a second: combos that cancel into skills, juggles, dash i-frames, telegraphed enemy attacks you can read and punish. Online, your hero moves the instant you do, and the server judges your defence the way you saw it.

The Furnace Hall

Four Lanternbearers, one Gearvault run.

An ultimate's cut-in: a white silhouette leaping through streaks of pink and violet.

Cut-ins

Yours alone, and optional.

An Aetherist silhouetted against deep blue, raising a stave toward a falling star.

Starfall Cascade

The Aetherist's ultimate.

Convergence

Ember, Frost and Volt, woven and released.

Parry

Parries that count

A Moonblade's Mirror Parry turns the blow aside and answers with a riposte. If the stance was up on your screen when the swing landed, the server counts it, the way the best fighting games do it online.

Dodge

Perfect dodges

Every dash has invulnerable frames. Dash through an attack at the last moment and time slows, your next strike is a guaranteed critical, and the monster is wide open.

Ultimate

Your moment

At level 20 each class earns an ultimate with its own cut-in. You're untouchable while it plays, only you see it, and it can be switched off in Settings.

Readable

Telegraphs you can trust

Enemy attacks draw their reach on the ground before they land, at their true width. Step out, parry, or dash through: the choice is yours and the warning never lies.

Build

Skills, traits, gear

Eight skills per class, each ranked up to five; a choice of two traits at four tiers, swapped free at the Moonwell; loot from Common to Mythic with rolled affixes, sets and uniques; and a forge that goes to +10 and never breaks your gear.

Bosses

Bosses

The Mycelord and the Tidewyrm hold their ground in the shared world: everyone who fights earns the kill and rolls their own loot, and they return ten minutes after they fall. The Brass Colossus waits at the bottom of the Gearvault for your party alone.

Together in Lanternmere

One world, shared

The city and the wilds are one world for everyone: you'll see other Lanternbearers on the stair, in the glade, at the forge. The Gearvault and the Trial are yours: every party gets its own run.

  • Parties of fourInvite from the social window or the chat. Your party travels together into instanced runs.
  • TradingSwap items and crowns face to face. Anything you've never worn can change hands; what you've equipped is yours for good.
  • The Aether ExchangeList gear for sale at Clerk Tamsin's counter; buyers pay by post while you adventure.
  • The Pneumatic PostSales, parcels and letters wait at Postmaster Quill's.
  • Chat, whispers, emotesSay, party, world and trade channels; whispers by name; dances in the square. Blocking and reporting are built in.
  • Quests and bountiesThe main story, side stories from the townsfolk, and bounties from Marshal Dunmore's board.

Play the alpha

A key, a download, and you're in

Aetherlune is in an invite-only online alpha while we test the servers with real players. Keys go out in small waves. Everything you do is saved on the server; things will change, and we want to hear what breaks.

Aetherlune for Windows

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  1. Get an invite key. Ask the person who sent you here: keys are handed out by the team in small waves.
  2. Download and unzip anywhere you like (not Program Files), then run Aetherlune.exe.
  3. Create your account in the game with the key, make your hero, and step into Lantern Square.

The game checks for updates each time it starts and installs them itself. If one ever fails, download the latest zip here and unzip it over the old folder: your characters live on the server.

What you need

  • Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
  • A graphics card with Vulkan support (NVIDIA GTX 900 series, AMD RX 400 series, Intel Arc / Iris Xe, or newer)
  • 8 GB of memory, about 400 MB of disk
  • A broadband connection; parries stay fair up to about 150 ms ping
  • Keyboard and mouse, or a controller

What's new

The changelog appears here with each build.

Found something broken?

Type /bug and what happened in the game's chat: the team gets it with your zone, where you stood and your version. To flag a player, /report Name and why; /block Name silences them for you. Or tell us on the channel you were invited through.