Kickstarter success story Planetary Annihilation has started its quest for galactic conquest by opening the gates to its alpha stage. Backers and pre-purchasers of the game’s Galactic and Cosmic editions should all have received their alpha key codes by the end of today.
Over 1600 people have been invited to take part in the alpha. At the moment the alpha is limited to the standard download client from the Uber Store, but the official Steam launch of the game is just a week away on 13th June. Uber Entertainment explain the reason behind delaying the Steam launch is to offer “early backers and pre-orders a little more time to get to know the current state of the game, allow us more time to iterate on the build, and just overall get this awesome experiment called Planetary Annihilation really moving!”
I’ve you were not one of Planetary Annihilation’s 44,162 backers, but have just realised that this is the RTS you’ve been waiting your entire life for, then you can still get into the alpha by buying either the Galactic or Cosmic edition of the game from the Uber Store. These are the most expensive variations of the game ($90 for Galactic, $200 for Cosmic), but the only ones that grant alpha access.
If you’d rather be patient and wait for the smoothed-out final version of the game, Planetary Annihilation is due to release in December 2013.