Prep your mechs and round up your drones, Commander, it’s the announcement you’ve been waiting for! The next instalment of the epic Sentinel tower defence series is officially in development – Sentinel 4: Dark Star.

So what can you expect from Sentinel 4: Dark Star? If you’ve followed the series to date, you’ll know that each Sentinel game hugely expands on its predecessors, and Sentinel 4 is no exception. The classic core Sentinel gameplay is intact: you’ll see Commanders and Ship Weapons, destructibles and drones, but we’ve got plenty of new toys to unveil over the next few months.

Many features are top secret for now, and some aren’t yet finalised, but here’s a quick taste of the scope of the game:

• Thought Sentinel 3’s base campaign was big? It’s only getting bigger. Sentinel 4: Dark Star will provide a massive set of missions for hours of action.
• We’ve officially outgrown the Solar System. Sentinel 4 will take you to a distant, stricken world where the human-alien war takes a dramatic new twist.
• Humans and our adversaries aren’t the only intelligent life in the galaxy. Discover a new race of aliens and uncover their ancient lost technology!

Work on Sentinel 4: Dark Star is well under way, and we aim to release the iOS version early next year, with Android following soon afterwards. Creators Paul Jackman and Laurence McDonald will be blogging here about the development process, with behind the scenes progress reports and sneak peeks at art, design and music. Join the discussion and help us shape the game into the best Sentinel yet!

We’ve opened a new Sentinel 4 forum for chat about the upcoming game – comments, questions and speculation are welcome. Let us know what you’re looking forward to, and what you’d like to see when you head to the Dark Star.