As a sequel to the 2008 Defense Grid: The Awakening, the game was crowd-funded on Kickstarter in 2012[4] and released on Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 on September 23, 2014.

[9] The player takes on the role of the commander, tasked with defending bases, colonies, space stations, and outposts from waves of aliens attempting to grab and escape with the power cores housed in each location.

The player views the game from a top-down perspective and has the ability to build various towers that attack and route the path for the waves of aliens.

The orbital laser allows the player to manually fire a large burst of energy at a group of aliens after it has charged, a process taking several minutes.

However, $1 million was needed to fund the complete sequel so Hidden Path began reaching out to investors.

A deal was made with video game enthusiast, DG2 Kickstarter backer, and angel investor Steven Dengler to fund the completion of Defense Grid 2.

[10] A suggestion website was made available to backers and later to the general public where people contributed ideas for inclusion in the game.