Ashes of the Singularity has stormed the blockades of Steam Early Access and has set up camp within Valve’s digital distribution service for the foreseeable future. Or at least until some point in 2016, when developers Oxide Games and Stardock Entertainment aim to conquer the game’s full release.
A while back, Fraser interviewed Stardock about Ashes of the Singularity. It’s a great read.
Ashes of the Singularity is all about scale. It’s about building and commanding massive armies that you’ll use to take over entire worlds, whilst locking horns with vast numbers of opponents with similarly lofty goals. Victory is hinged on beating your enemies or by capturing key resources and if this paragraph has taught you but nothing else, you’ll do so by decimating each and every last one of your foes and by monopolising every corner of the entire landscape. Think big.
Kirk spoke before of the game’s “unprecedented scale”, noting that it’s the first ever native 64-bit RTS, one which requires DirectX 11 at a minimum. Speaking to this point, Dan Baker, principal graphics architect at Oxide Games, correlated Ashes of the Singularity with the silver screen as he said: “[The game] really shows off what is possible on modern hardware. The rendering method we use in Nitrous is essentially the same as the techniques CGI in movies have used, except on modern hardware we can do it in real-time.”
As you might expect, then, Ashes of the Singularity looks fantastic. But as you might also expect, only those running high-end machines should consider it at this stage. Likewise, it’s a pretty in-depth strategy endeavour, thus going in with little experience is also advised against, something Stardock president and CEO Brad Wardell addressed earlier today: “Only people with very high end hardware who are experienced strategy game players should consider joining Early Access. There’s still lots of work to be done such as global player abilities and an additional playable race, as well as perfecting what is, after all, a very cutting edge engine. There will be bumps. We very much are looking for player input.”
Ashes of the Singularity is on Steam Early Access now where you can pick it up for the introductory price of $39.99 (20% off), for a limited time.