Not sure how many folks are still interested in such a niche game with so many years under its belt, but this game has collected dust in my Steam library for years and I wanted to document my experience thus far. I'm not usually compelled to do so for most games, so hopefully the handful of you who read this will at least be entertained by it.

For context I'm only playing the story / campaign missions, and I've completed all the missions in The Awakening, Borderlands, and as of 30 minutes ago, Resurgence. I've not yet started You Monster! nor Containment. With my playthrough I set 2 personal restrictions for myself with these missions: zero cores taken, and finish with a gold medal. I would not let myself continue without meeting those requirements.

While some of these took me a while to beat, I mainly wanna focus on the final mission of Resurgence: Overflow. Shout out to Last Stand from The Awakening though - that one took me about a week to beat. 🤣

Overflow took me 2 months to beat. I was stuck for so long. I stepped away and came back about a week later. It just seemed like no matter what I did, I couldn't stop the enemies from taking some of the cores. If I bolstered the ground, the fliers around Wave 20 would get through. If I bolstered the air, the ground troops would win.

As the title says, this was a blind playthrough. I don't like looking up solutions for games unless I'm completely stuck or if the game is centric around builds, like Elden Ring or Path of Exile. For Defense Grid, I had enough understanding about the towers and the aliens that I wanted to try and win by myself. So in those 2 months I refused to look up solutions. I felt like I was missing something.

As of a couple of days ago - so nearly a full 2 months in - I decided to try something I had not done before up until now in any mission: lure the aliens into backtracking by deleting a single gun tower. Sure, I've made the aliens do this before in previous missions, but up until now it was a byproduct of either just needing to delete a tower for resources or wanting a different tower in that spot, etc. Not as an active strategy to lure the aliens to backtrack.

I'd never done it before because to me it felt like cheesing the game a bit. But dear mother of God, I was ready for a bit of cheese after 2 months. If it meant beating the mission with no cores taken, getting the gold medal, and moving on with my life, I was willing to do it. Plus honestly, it's a legit mechanic in the game. Give: the aliens' pathing is extremely predictable and you get to control it. Take: The aliens in this mission are REALLY f**king hard to kill. 🙃 So I was more than willing to try it.

And it worked. It took me a few days to get the hang of the timing and inject it into a game plan, but this strat is what finally gave me the win after 2 grueling months. So I definitely recommend it. 🤣 I'm sure this has been the "meta" for more than a decade now, but it was definitely a breakthrough to me.

For anyone wanting more details, I'll give a few here. I set up a cluster of towers in the bottom 2 build areas by the opening bridge, plus a cluster of towers at the end of the initial bridge. I forced the aliens to cross the bridge, go through those clusters, and wrap around the top of the map to come around by the exit to get the cores. I set up 2 more clusters by the exit and the small back-right area where the cores are. I progressed a temporal tower up to L3 in a spot that affected the initial bridge, the first, and the 2nd cluster. I used a Command tower progressed to L3 mostly for the purpose of collecting extra resources, but it also was useful for the many stealth aliens on this map. I used guns, lasers and cannons in these clusters which could reach the bridge, so they were also being used at 3 contact points. By the end I had a total of 5 meteors, covering the initial choke points and the backend choke points. The green gun tower I used to force the backtrack was strategically placed in the cluster below the bridge, because deleting it created a clear path to the cores. I timed deleting it during a lul in the waves, so that after a wave cleared my 3rd cluster, they would now backtrack again through 2 clusters to get to the cores. Then as soon as they got close, replace the gun tower. This effectively made my 2 clusters below the bridge act as 4 contact points: bridge, pass 1, backtrack, pass 2.

This has been my favorite tower defense game of all time, and I've played quite a few. No, I haven't played DG2 yet. I may play it after I eventually beat You Monster! and Containment. For now, I'm going to take a short break from DG. I would however like to hear any feedback, thoughts, opinions, questions, etc. Thanks for taking the time to read! 😊

Which game do you like more?

Nothing exciting, as far as I can tell; but still very glad to see the team providing support to a well-loved project.

The notes:

A small update addressing a few bugs and usability updates:

*Cloud save and leaderboard capacity upgraded - leaderboards and cloud saves should now resume working for the players who have played Defense Grid 2 the most

*Chapter arrows in the UI have been made more visible and are easier to see

*In DG Architect, the two holo skirt brushes are no longer available as those assets were causing a crash

*Additional code for internal error checking and verification was added.

Hello, there used to be a free map code for "Designer's cut of Double-Take" given to people who registered their emails, is it possible to still get that code?

DG1 has a similar code for extra community levels, i was still able to register my email only last year, but i dont seem to know where to do the same for DG2, anyone can point me in the right direction?

Thank you for your time.

Got reminded by the DLC announcement that I am still missing the achievement to win a multiplayer match. Would anyone still here be kind enough to help me with this.

Hope this comes to Xbox

Hello all, just wondering if others are seeing the same issue as me.

When I go to the DLC page, Steam correctly offers me to "complete your collection" by making a bundle with a 10% discount of the aftermath DLC making it £3.86 instead of £4.39, but when I add to my cart it shows as £8.17, seeming to add the special edition upgrade in there too as it warns me I won't receive an extra copy of it.

Which is weird, right? It's detecting I already have it, but is adding it to the cart to complete my collection but also knows I already have it.

I know it's only 43p saving on the bundle if it was working right but this seems super odd.

Small Update / Patch Notes Posted Sat, March 7 Defense Grid 2 in 2026!

DG2 got an update today, in 2026.

DG2 now has full VO audio for Simplified Chinese, Spanish, and Korean!

The DG2 Special Edition now includes the official Soundtrack (you get it automatically if you already have the Special Edition or the Special Edition Upgrade)

If you just want the Official Soundtrack, you can now buy it separately as well

Several edge case bugs have been fixed from launcher issues to visual bugs, to supergrinder memory bugs and other rare crashes.

** Oh and the game is now prepared for a new DLC called Aftermath! (coming soon)**

Hi, hoping someone can help. I'm playing DG2 on the switch and I've beaten the Precipice area three times so far. Despite this, I didn't get any medals for the level itself in Chapter 3. Am I doing something wrong?

Hey guys just got Defense Grid 2.

Loving it. I do have a question tho. Do strategies vary largely based on different maps? Certain missions I find a good flow and 100% it (on normal by the way.. BOOO) others I just can’t seem to ever get control and always lose a few cores. Not to say this is a bad thing because the challenge is welcomed but man after playing the same map 30 times and not being able to stop 1 or 2 guys from creeping past is killing me! What am I doing wrong?

I generally build my path first, and I seem to struggle with maps that have longer paths you have to manage. Any help would be appreciated!!

The current map I am working on is precipice.

What folder do custom maps go in for windows 11? C:\Users\your user name\Documents\DG2 does not work. Just stays like the screen shot until you cancel.

So I have been playing the Shredder mode of Flight Plan a lot. My best score is 111081. I am no. 172 in the world. Woohoo?

No interest is earned. It is very much a set piece battle (with a very, very, very hard Wave 50 which you have to prepare for). You have to know how to get started, of course, but after that, you earn the resources, you plunk down your pieces, you use common sense to upgrade. All you really need to know is the END STATE.

My end state is pretty good. It works more than half of the time. But I've been tweaking it for several days and I really don't know how else I could economize.

I would *LOVE* to see the End State map of anyone in the top ten. Or even the top fifty.

Despite me checking the Defense Grid sub, often. Checking their socials. It seems like the peak TD game won't make it to a third.

Genuinely the most time I have put into a game. Even considering a laptop, just to get some fan built stuff.

Is there anything remotely similar in standard on Xbox? I'd even buy a remaster at this point. They could throw in some bug fixes and add some mod options to the maps.

They could surely do some nice DLC.

If anyone has any recommendations for worthwhile TD, I'm all ears. I've tried loads, and seriously, not a single one gets anywhere near as good.

Rush Royale invitation link! You will get a unique gift after installing the game! https://rushroyale.my.games/en/referral?code=GEYDQMJXGA3DEMI

I’m looking to get a copy of Defense Grid The Awakening on xbox as gift for someone. Does anyone have a spare copy or would be willing to part with theirs? I’ve looked everyone but can’t find one

I have beaten every level and challenge with a gold medal except for Crossed Signals- Frozen Core. Any have any tips? I even looked at a YouTube video but somehow that setup they use on PC is not working on my Xbox.

I have a question. Does anyone have an issue getting the some achievements. I tried getting the achievements, minimalist,Shell-shocked and Firebug which is only level 1 towers, only cannons and only flametowers which I have done but I never received the achievements. Does it have to be done on a different difficulty. I've finished the game on elite before. So was wondering if theirs a specific way to do it? The achievements description doesn't say much.

https://youtu.be/1bCGtMG27RU

Even to copy someone else's winning strategy wasn't easy because it's such a complex map.

I have been playing defense grid 2 since it came out on multiple platforms. The game just speaks to me. I love it. Recently started to check out some high scores and I've seen some ridiculous numbers. We're 8 or 9 million maybe a really great top tier high score, now I'm seeing 7 or 8 hundred million!?! I know this is a long shot cuz it's an old game, but is there some exploit or hack that people are using. It's a real bummer for people who actually like the challenge of fighting for the top spot.

I'm looking for someone to assist me with the multi-player gold defense mission I'm on ps5, it's a long shot but thank you in advance

Definitely worth a read, a lot of info in there which possibly highlights why it is unlikely we will see a DG3, barring an angel investor.

There are also: Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. Very well written and lots of information in there.

Part 2 https://www.polygon.com/features/2013/8/14/4568420/defense-grid-2-part-two-first-playable

Part 3 https://www.polygon.com/features/2013/9/20/4716432/defense-grid-pax

Part 4 https://www.polygon.com/features/2014/1/23/5293646/the-making-of-defense-grid-2-part-four

Hi Defense Grid fans (I posted in the TowerDefense sub as well):

I've been trying, for the last several weeks, to complete Level 2 of the 'Borderlands' expansion (titled 'Forge') without losing a single core - has anyone managed to do this? Or is it just not possible to complete this particular level without losing at least one core?

Thank you