Cortex Command

Choose between different factions, with their own set of expendable soldiers, mechas, and weapons. Protect your brain, mine gold, and destroy the enemy cortex in his bunker complex!

Cortex Command is a strategy, indie and action game developed by Data Realms and published by Data Realms and LLC.
Released on September 28th 2012 is available in English on Windows and MacOS.

It has received 5,965 reviews of which 4,276 were positive and 1,689 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.0 out of 10. 😊

The game is currently priced at 18.99€ on Steam.

The Steam community has classified Cortex Command into these genres:

Strategy Indie Action 2D Physics Sandbox Pixel Graphics Moddable Local Co-Op Sci-fi Singleplayer Local Multiplayer Difficult Platformer Gore Multiplayer Split Screen RTS Replay Value Violent

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Cortex Command through various videos and screenshots.

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Requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

OS *: Microsoft® Windows® XP / Vista / 7
Processor: 1GHz processor
Memory: 1GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 150MB HDD space
Video Card: 640x480 (VGA) resolution monitor
Additional: Should run on any PC released within the past 5 years.

MacOS

OSX:10.4 (OSX Tiger or Greater)
Processor:1.6 Ghz Core 2 Duo
RAM:1GB RAM
Graphics:Intel GMA X3100
Disk:300 mb

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Jan. 2025

A great game left out in the rain by the developers. You can get the whole game for free and open source since the original creators did put out the code themself. I was really debating on if giving this a positive or negative rating was better, in the end is up to you how you spend money. The workshop is great so I would understand if that was a deciding factor. Personally I have no gripes with the game, only annoying thing they put in it was adverts for Planetoid Pioneers inside it. Planetoid Pioneers being the game that killed people's respect of the developers as it was shortly abandoned too. Another reason I found it hard to review Cortex Command is trying to fit the gameplay in to a single genre. This has RTS aspects with the economy and battles, but it is also a very chill base builder. It has its economic managment phase, but also the abilily to gather and store wealth during battles for later use. If I was really forced to I would call it something it would be a 2D RTS with a strategy campaing in order to show the results of what you and the AI has made of the planet during corporate warfare. You really need to see it in order to get it. Any negative review either mentions one of two things. One Data Realms behavior of abounding games and still selling a inferior bug ridden mess (I mean why buy this instead of downloading it for free?). Two the jank of this title. What makes Cortex Command so great is the engine, the terrain and units and vehicles all can be destroyed pixel by pixel. This can ofcourse lead to problems, you could get stuck on your own dead units or a mere pixel in the way. You could be thrown half across the battle field. You could even just die from something you didn't see. Yes there are a lot of crashes. I also feel the only challange comes from the AI's ability to spam units and have them act on their own, out matches the player's ability to multitask and the rather piss poor auto commands you can give. For one player climbing is a pinch, for another is a unresolvable problem in the code. The positive aspects is that the code is out there, and I have never seen as impressive mods as I have with this title. You can play with units and vechiles at such a size it boggles the mind. Nothing will preaper you from the joy of seeing all your carnage, wreckages, old fortifcations and corpses remaning battle from battle. I can't count how many times I even destroyed my own units to add flavor to the terrain is just that cool looking (the Star Destroyer being my personal favorite sprite). Some mods just makes this a whole different game, Void Wanderers is so good it could be sold on its own. Is also very natural how you control units and build, I had no problem learning to play on my own and unlike others never experinced any real issues with climbing ladders or interacting with items. No other games really gives me the feel anything I want is possible.

Dec. 2024

This is a really fun and unique indie game that I was introduced to in 2009 while I was in 7th grade. I was on a long bus ride for a week long school related STEM seminar and a random kid from the bus showed me this game. We were sitting in the very back corner taking turns setting up defenses and fighting wars! It was kinda hard to do with no mouse and while on the bus, but we made it work! 10/10 I do recommend!

Dec. 2024

An awesome but now old and janky game. Yes, there are mods but they can only do so much. This needs a proper sequel!

Dec. 2024

[*] Buy on 80% sale for 4$ [*] Installed on pc, pretty cool game [*] Installed on laptop and it says it can't find the executable [*] Remembered this game is open source [*] Open gay linux terminal (I use arch btw) to install open source version yay -S cortexcommand` [*] Installs and works without issue [*] Realize the open sourced community released version I got for free has more features this one on steam. Still a good game though. 2D physically simulated pixel engines always have a cumstain(soft spot) in my pants(heart) The only reason for buying this is if you have monkey brain and like seeing steam numbers go up. Otherwise just get it for free. Too bad the devs abandoned it...

Sept. 2024

Have played this an incredible amount over the years due to how fun of a sandbox game it is. But it is clearly unfinished and quite rough. Also I think it has just broken recently as it will not start at all without crashing unless I use an entirely different version (made by the community) of the game which is a shame. I have kind of grown out of it, but I can still look back on the dozens of hours of fun I had playing with the different mods that are available. Great!

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Data sources

The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.

Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.

Last Updates

Steam data	19 November 2024 05:14
SteamSpy data	21 January 2025 01:08
Steam price	23 January 2025 04:45
Steam reviews	23 January 2025 03:53

18.99€

7.0

4,276

1,689

Online players

Developer

Data Realms

Publisher

Data Realms, LLC

Release 28 Sep 2012

Platforms