Most Hull Rupture demo progress does not carry over. If you completed the tutorial in the demo you will not have to play it again, and if you unlocked Trade Mode it is already available. Everything else starts fresh, and artifacts specifically have to be unlocked a second time.
The demo itself has been disabled. It was taken down in the days before the November 4 launch and has not been restored, so anyone arriving now starts at zero with no way to check the save.
The two exceptions
| What | Carries over | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Tutorial completion | Yes | Named as an exception by the developer |
| Trade Mode unlock | Yes | Named as an exception by the developer |
| Artifacts | No | The demo lacked the final unlock conditions |
| Everything else | No | Runs, ships and progression start fresh |
The artifact exception has a reason attached to it, and it is the useful part: the demo shipped before the final unlock conditions existed. The developer's explanation is that those unlocks could not be transferred because the conditions they would have been measured against did not exist yet.
If you played the demo
Do not go looking for a save migration tool. There is nothing to migrate and the demo client is gone. The tutorial skip and Trade Mode are the whole of what survives.
The rule change that catches returning players
In the demo, a module slot only became available once there was a finished module next to it. Players found that confusing, and the launch build removed the restriction: modules can now be built in any empty module slot on the ship.
The visual design still hints at the old rule — empty hull blocks have different shapes and finishes — but those differences no longer decide where a module can go. A returning player who keeps building outward from a finished module is playing a stricter game than the one they bought.
Endless is no longer automatic
The demo rolled from a completed Classic run into Endless Mode without asking. The full game separates them: Endless is its own mode with its own settings, chosen before the run rather than inherited at the end of one.
That change exists partly for balance reasons. The developer traced late-run slowdowns to Endless scaling and split the mode out so it could be tuned separately from Classic.
Official media · SteamArtifacts look different now
Artifact icons and names were reassigned between the demo and launch. In some cases an icon that belonged to one artifact in the demo now belongs to a different one.
That is cosmetic in the strict sense — the mechanics did not swap — but it breaks the muscle memory of anyone who learned the demo's icon set. Read the name, not the picture, for the first few runs.
What the demo actually contained
The demo was the public build that ran before launch: the tutorial, the opening waves of Classic, the hull-construction tool and enough modules to reach the first real decisions. It ran for a limited window and was taken down before launch.
What it did not contain was the final unlock conditions for artifacts, which is the mechanical reason those did not transfer. It also carried the older module-placement rule, the automatic Endless hand-off, and the pre-launch artifact icon set — three things the full game changed.
Anyone who played it and stopped has, in effect, played a build that no longer exists. The useful part of that experience is the shape of the first run, not the numbers attached to it.
If you never played the demo
Nothing is lost. The tutorial is short, the first run teaches the same lessons, and the carry-over rules only matter to people who are owed something.
Start in Classic, spend the first waves on production rather than turrets, and extend the alien route before adding guns. That advice is unchanged from the demo and is still the fastest way through the opening.
Official media · SteamThree habits from the demo that are now wrong
The demo taught a set of habits that the launch build quietly invalidated, and they are worth naming because each one costs a run to unlearn.
Building outward from a finished module is the first. In the demo a slot only opened next to a completed module, so every player learned to grow the ship in a chain. The full game removed the rule, and a chain is now just a slower way to build.
Expecting Endless to continue is the second. Finishing a Classic run used to roll into Endless automatically; now the mode is chosen before the run starts, and a wave 20 finish is a finish.
Trusting the artifact icons is the third. Icons and names were reassigned, so the picture you learned is not a reliable label. Read the name.
What to do instead of importing
Start a Classic run and play it as a tutorial you have already read. The launch build's first twenty waves are the same shape as the demo's, minus the rule that annoyed you.
Three things are worth knowing before wave five: production comes before turrets, the route matters more than the gun count, and difficulty now unlocks across all modes at once rather than per mode. The first two were true in the demo. The third is new.
If the tutorial skip does not trigger, start a fresh run anyway — the tutorial is short, and a run that begins with a system you already understand is a better use of the first hour than troubleshooting a flag.