Gamersgate has rolled out a new IndieFort bundle just in time to help Americans celebrate something about tea or Paul Revere or fighting off the British with nothing more than fireworks and grilled meats. It's a bit of a small bundle featuring only three games, but they all have co-op play, which counts double as far as we're concerned.

While Sanctum developer Coffee Stain Studios is busy trumpeting Sanctum 2, the IndieFort Spring Bundle would like to remind us that the original game is still around and is still awesome. Featured as part of a five game package, Sanctum fuses first person shooting and tower defense into one seamless experience. And yes, the four player online co-op is as good as you want it to be.

This past week tower defense/FPS hybrid Sanctum received both a free update as well as a DLC map pack. The patch, entitled Still Alive, adds a new weapon (the Tesla Gun) as well as two new towers (the Drone and the Accelerator) to the base game. The map pack (entitled Map Pack 2, who would have thought?) gives purchasers access to three new levels (Industry, Chasm, and Invasion) for the price of $4.99. 

FPS/Tower Defense hybrid, Sanctum, was a game we quite enjoyed around here. We gave it a nice 4 out of 5 in our co-op review, and since then the game has sold over 350,000 units, enjoyed heavy content patches as well as DLC, and there's even been word that Sanctum 2 is on its way. Developer Coffee Stain Studios, however, is not content to just sit back and rest on their laurels - now they're hard at work on bringing Sanctum to Mac.

Before Gears of War 3’s revised horde mode mixed tower defense elements with third-person shooter gameplay, PC game Sanctum had already fully combined tower defense and (first-person) shooting. Since Sanctum’s release, Coffee Stain Studios has issued a steady stream of free downloadable updates. Now they’re adding paid DLC to the mix, and thankfully it’s not much of a strain on the wallet.

Tower Defense/Shooter hybrid Sanctum is one of my favorite games of the year so far.  It earned solid marks in our review, blending of two unique genres into something very enjoyable indeed.  If you were thinking about checking it out, but undecided, now might be a good time: Sanctum is now priced at $9.99, which truly is a lot of bang for your bucks(s).

Sanctum, the hybrid FPS/Tower Defense indie game we reviewed a few months ago, has had 4-player co-op in the works for some time now at the behest of players. An update for the game just went live which implements it as promised, upping the co-opability from 2 players to 4. Also added were "co-op build and upgrade towers" (no idea what those are, but don't they sound fancy!) as well as some additional modes, settings, achievements, and UI tweaks. For full patch notes, read on.

Indie TD/FPS hybrid Sanctum gets some free DLC next week, apparently including "new content and updates, as well as a map." Well, the map part is clear (which is excellent news, boosting the map count of the game from 3 up to 4), but as for what "new content and updates" details is anyone's guess. Coffee Stain Studios has revealed this is just the first of a group of content updates planned to release over the coming months. I'm fairly confident that one of these content updates will introduce 4-player co-op into the game (Sanctum currently only has 2-player co-op), a much-requested feature that the devs have said is in the works.

Tower Defense games have gained a lot of popularity of late. How does indie TD/FPS hybrid Sanctum stack up? Let's take a look.

Have you ever had a moment when playing a tower defense game when you've sat back and marvelled at the insanity your avatar must be witnessing from their point of view? Upcoming indie tower defense game Sanctum won't leave these kind of crazy thoughts merely to your imagination, as it will put you head-on into the madness, FPS-style. The premise places you as an elite soldier whose home planet is being overrun by aliens. As with standard TD games, you'll be able to construct and upgrade towers (through a standard, zoomed-out perspective). Once the waves of enemies start, however, your character will also be able to actively shoot them with a variety of weapons from a first-person perspective.