Cleared Hot
by Not Knowing Corporation · 20 Nov, 2025
42 downloads
About the Game
Cleared Hot is a top-down helicopter shooter that pulls hard from the late-90s arcade genre — Strike Commander, Desert Strike, those zooming-around-with-a-cannon-and-a-rope vibes — but with modern physics and light tactical depth layered on top. You fly missions across handcrafted maps, drop a squad of infantry on the ground, swing a magnet rope to grab and reposition objects, and deal with whatever's shooting back at you.
Not Knowing Corporation launched the game into Early Access in November 2025, and this download is build 21248438 — the current stable version with all the early-access content patches included. The campaign clocks in at roughly 8–10 hours, with mission variety leaning more toward physics-puzzle solutions than pure twitch shooting.
Released with CSF + Goldberg, fully offline-playable, achievements unlock through the local stub. 1.4 GB installed. Single-player only — Early Access has not introduced multiplayer modes at this point in development.
Screenshots
10 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41689504/d19aee5cc7a6a332e2bebcacced32f8352e26e47.png"]
Pilots! We are happy to announce that Chapter1a has been released. We fit in as much as we could before the holidays, we hope you enjoy it!
Comanche
The new helicopter, the RAH-66 Comanche is in the game! It is extremely agile but takes damage quickly. Give it a play and let us know what you think.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41689504/52d55c5ee9b8439c57f41e8e5e527b4d8d9aa733.png"]
New Test Flight Area
We took your feedback on wanting some more things to test, and made the test flight area into a sandbox. There are now buttons / switches you can interact with to spawn enemies,
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41689504/566cdf80e4393b41ef0fcad4a30f8992abcdd4ac.gif"]
How To Access Test Flight
To enter the test flight mode, go into the hangar and then click "TEST FLIGHT" on the right side panel.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41689504/b38a52efba04639a64a8476810b2b63a740f960b.png"]
Survival Mode
This area has a handful of small mini-game modes that we are exploring. In survival mode you defend a building from waves of enemies, with health and ammo dropped in between waves. You get a cash reward for reaching the half way point and for completing the stage.
Defense Simulation
This just sends waves of enemies straight at a target. The enemies don't progress and there is no ending.
Standoff Range
Spawns both friendly and enemy NPCs and sends them into a battle.
Other Areas
There are a lot of other areas for you to play with.
Demolition Playground
Physics Playground
Standoff Range
Shooting Range
Vehicle Range
Turret Range
Radar Turret Range
We are hoping this area can be a place to experiment! We'd love your feedback on all this- what do you want to see more of?
New Options
Screen Shake
You can now adjust how much screen shake is applied (in game options)
No Blood / Gore / BBQ Meat
You can now disable blood and gore. The NPCs will no longer explode into various cuts of meat after being killed by rotors or certain weapons.
Active Debris Limit
Added a slider for the maximum number of physics debris pieces that can be active at a time. Lowering this will help performance in certain CPU bound situations, or really destruction heavy levels.
UI FPS Limit
We've added an option to limit your FPS while in the game UI, to prevent melting any graphics cards unnecesarily :)
Cloud Save
We also added cloud save. So you can keep synced between your various devices. Keep in mind that with the current implementation, the game syncs on quit. So if you want to swap devices, quit out of your current session before switching.
Steam Deck Verified
Cleared Hot is now Steam Deck verified, woohoo! This update came through last week but we didn't announce it publicly.
Various Fixes
Improved: Boss music logic so it fits better with the different phases
Improved: Sfx on collision performance for props
Imprived: Collision damage performance for destructible props
Fixed: camera starting sometimes in strange positions
Fixed: bug where you could change to different UIs in the homebase when selecting helo ending up with a broken ui
Fixed: updated a few props to use the proper collider
Fixed: Configured the rope pickup in some props so they work better when they spawn rotated
Fixed: Mouse was hidden when using "Quit to menu" option while in a mission
Fixed: Warehouse destruction model fixed so the broken parts don't kill units inside
Fixed: Hind passenger stat now match the actual number of passengers supported ingame
Thank You + Happy Holidays
This last month has been a bit of a blur. Thanks to everyone who supported us on our launch.
We really wanted to get you this update before the holidays, to keep the momentum and show we're committed to our early access schedule. I'm really happy that we're able to send a small amount of new content for you to play over the holiday break.
I think we are all ready to take a break to relax and be with family now :D So happy holidays! Come celebrate with us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/XmMTqEjpQg
Thanks everyone!
-Colin "cfinger" and the Cleared Hot team
Hotfix: v0.2.5#17788
Keep the feedback coming everyone. This is a small update to fix some common issues. Our focus will now move to the Chapter 1a update.
Fixed: all helos loadout stats.
Fixed: end of mission screen navigation issue when using quit button from pause menu.
Balance: hydra and hellfire missiles.
Localization: hold ctrl to land is now localized.
Fixed: press escape while loading was starting the game with the pause menu open and game running.
Fixed: blackhawk cargo stats.
Changed: improvements in ui scale support
Changed: increased font sizes in homebase to improve Steam Deck legibility.
Fixed: ps4 and ps5 controller icons.
Changed: reordered upgrades to show light and heavy missiles ordered.
Fixed: "The Battle of Big Rocks" misison now continues when picking up special weapon crate without using the rope.
Fixed: "A West Texas Road Trip" bridge can't be destroyed out of order now so the mission and exchanges run normally.
Changed: removed some unused instructions and added the next weapon/previous weapon in pause menu.
Fixed: localization in homebase for some languages.
Fixed: looped sounds playing after quitting mission to the abandoned screen.
Known Issue: Quitting mid mission will hide the mouse cursor until you get back to the home base.
We are working on a fix, for now, here are some temporary solutions:
You can alt-tab to unhide the cursor
Use arrow keys and enter key
Use the mouse, it's invisible but mousing over the buttons will make them highlight. The buttons are still clickable.
Hotfix: v0.2.4#17671
Thanks for your feedback. We fixed the most pressing things we could manage to fix in a day. Enjoy!
Fix: Improved performance in Mission 10: Data Harvesting.
Fix: Improved performance of jet enemy on all missions
Fix: When rescuing or delivering people made them invulnerable to prevent accidental deaths when dropping them
Fix: Tweaked volume and frequency of scientist barks
Fix: Fixed how instructions were shown for controls that have positive and negative axis (ex: altitude control)
Fix: Made chickens a priority target for the rope
Fix: Fixed ally npcs entering the van and breaking the objectives (Data Harvesting)
Fix: Fixed dialog overlap in dialog when killing humvee (Tail Risk)
Fix: Fixed music in The Battle of Big Rocks
Fix: Added explicit drop zone in The Long Way Home
Hello Players! Thank you for all your feedback! We just pushed a quick fix for the below issues.
Fix: Fixed some texts that were using a font without support for localization
Fix: Fixed main fonts using fallback for cyrilic characters
Fix: Added code to prevent issues when the options or savegame can't be loaded
Fix: Fixed gas tank from "An Odd Tool for Odd Jobs" that was not blowing up when using the Easy of Custom difficulty options to lower Ally damage.
Carry on, pilots. It's great to have you in the game, finally !
- Colin "cfinger" and the Cleared Hot rapid response dev team (Ariel and Ruben :D )
WE ARE LIVE
Brave Wishlisters, our time has come !!! Cleared Hot is available for purchase on Steam. Wow. it is just barely sinking in for me.
Go and enjoy this nostalgic experience we have crafted for you !
Ways You Can Help
Buy and review the game! Early reviews help us a ton.
Share it with your friends
Come celebrate on discord with us :)
Thanks.
Five years ago I was struggling with a career I wasn’t enjoying. I wanted to explore game dev again- a childhood dream I had left behind- but didn’t know if it would work out.
I started learning Unity, and ended up spending a lot of time inside during 2020, making games out of cubes and programmer art. I got up the courage to try to make a helicopter fly. I made a prototype called “Kinda Air Support” where you did humorous tasks with a helicopter.
One day my childhood Desert Strike memories got ahold of me and I thought “what would this game be like with guns and missiles?”.
It turns out, it was pretty damn fun. Then it took 4 more years to finish it. (and there is more to come!)
So now, as the game launches, I want to say thank you. Thank you for making this game happen. I hope you enjoy it !!
- Colin "cfinger" and the Cleared Hot team
WE ARE LIVE
Brave Wishlisters, our time has come !!! Cleared Hot is available for purchase on Steam. Wow. it is just barely sinking in for me.
Go and enjoy this nostalgic experience we have crafted for you !
Ways You Can Help
Buy and review the game! Early reviews help us a ton.
Share it with your friends
Come celebrate on discord with us :)
Thanks.
Five years ago I was struggling with a career I wasn’t enjoying. I wanted to explore game dev again- a childhood dream I had left behind- but didn’t know if it would work out.
I started learning Unity, and ended up spending a lot of time inside during 2020, making games out of cubes and programmer art. I got up the courage to try to make a helicopter fly. I made a prototype called “Kinda Air Support” where you did humorous tasks with a helicopter.
One day my childhood Desert Strike memories got ahold of me and I thought “what would this game be like with guns and missiles?”.
It turns out, it was pretty damn fun. Then it took 4 more years to finish it. (and there is more to come!)
So now, as the game launches, I want to say thank you. Thank you for making this game happen. I hope you enjoy it !!
- Colin "cfinger" and the Cleared Hot team
Current Release
21248438
Uploaded Dec 18, 2025
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System Requirements
How to Install
ClearedHot.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
1.4 GB
21248438
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Download Cleared Hot for PC with a direct link or via torrent. Get the full version of Cleared Hot for free. Cleared Hot is a Action released by Not Knowing Corporation.