We’ve been hard at work on our internal Alpha 1 milestone. The focus has been finishing the new faction: the United Earth Forces (UEF). This is a unified military command made up of the United States, China, Russia, the EU, Australia, Japan, Korea, and others, all placed under your control to deal with the so-called “Post-Human Coalition.”
Our story so far
Those familiar with Ashes of the Singularity (2015) may recall the then far-fetched idea that, in the not-so-distant future, a handful of tech-industry leaders would develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) and use it to uplift themselves into a virtual world called the Metaverse. From there, they would interact with the real world through their constructs: drones, robots, and more. Together, they would form the Post-Human Coalition (PHC).
The first game centered on the conflict between the PHC and the Substrate, a sentient AGI called Haalee and her forces. The battles took place away from Earth. In fact, Earth and humanity were barely mentioned beyond the campaign’s comment that there were only around 40 Post-Humans and 10 billion normal humans left.
If the plot of the first game felt esoteric, that was deliberate. It was all setup for what would become Ashes of the Singularity II, which we originally intended to make much sooner.
Ashes of the Singularity II is where things become much clearer and, given the rise of real-world AI, a lot more plausible. The story opens with the PHC converting the surface of the Moon into Turinium, a material that combines energy production and data-center capability. Think of a nanotech substance that handles both computing and power generation.
What’s new in Ashes of the Singularity II?
One thing I like about RTS games is that they don’t “age” the same way other genres do. The challenge for developers is making the case that players should try something new when they can still boot up StarCraft II and it looks great, or Company of Heroes 1, or modern free projects like BAR (Beyond All Reason). Sanctuary: Shattered Sun is also looking impressive. And that’s without touching on Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, and others.
You get the idea though: A new RTS game has to have compelling features to justify my (your) time. So let’s start with what have we done here:
Feature | Ashes of the Singularity II | Ashes of the Singularity | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
Factions | 3 | 2 | NEW: The humans! Earth! |
Scale | Tiny to Massive | Tiny to Massive | The scale is about the same in terms of size. What has changed is that the armies in Ashes II were designed with this understanding. Ashes I had near StarCraft levels of micro at times but Supreme Commander levels of scale. This time, every unit always belongs to an Army. Reinforcing and even choosing what is an army is done at the Army UI instead of finding buildings to build them. Armies will always send orders to your factories and the units will initially deploy from the nearest factory to the army. |
Unit Production | Army Based | Building Based | In the first game, players spent a lot of time hunting and pecking through many buildings to find the right factory to give orders to. Now, construction is global. Your army needs a new tank or mech, you put in the order. This lets players focus on their strategy and not how quickly they can find the right factory. |
Map Choices | Procedurally Generated | Pre-Made | In the first game, players picked a map from a list. In the sequel, while we will have pre-made maps, the default is to simply choose some map settings and let the map generate it. This means that EXPLORATION is a big part of the game because no two maps are the same. From playing the Alpha I can say this is a huge deal. |
Tech Progression | Tech Tree | Building Unlocks | This is a classic “with the benefit of hindsight” design improvement. Having a Tech tree allows us to have units unlocked through interesting choices rather than forcing the player to build a specific building to unlock a unit. The building unlocks a unit design isn’t inherently bad until you remember the scale. A player might not realize that some key building was destroyed because of the scale of the game. |
Map Organization | Regions w power lines | Regions | Because units being produced are initially deployed in the nearest factory to the army that makes that nearest factory a lot more important than before. If I have a factory near the front lines and behind the front lines there are 10 factories, then that front line factory will be deploying units pretty fast. And if that was the end of it, that would make for a very OP mechanic (imo). However, the map is broken up into regions and if you flank the enemy and cut off a region, then power to that factory is gone and thus that factory is no longer supplying units. This makes the risk/reward of getting in front of your supply lines that much more enticing. |
Construction | Region based Engineers | Individual Engineers | In the first game, you would produce construction units (Engineers) and I would queue up orders for them. But this design didn’t scale. Late game you might have dozens of them and you’d be spending your time looking for them. It was often easier to spend precious resources to simply call down a brand new Engineer than to find one. Now, Engineers are automatically provided and tied to their region. You give orders to the region and the Engineers do the work. This is similar to what we do in Sins of a Solar Empire. |
Rally Points | Automatic | Manual | The first game was pretty traditional – you select a building and have its units go out to a particular rally point. But in Ashes of the Singularity II, no need because they will automatically join the army that ordered them in the first place. |
Ballistics | Physics Based | Abstract | In 2015, the sheer quantity of units made it a challenge to deal with weapons hitting and missing. A given unit might have nearly a dozen different turrets on it. And with no unit cap, we were mindful of the late game performance. But in 2025, where everyone has at least 8 logical cores to work with, you could have a core dedicated just for ballistics (we don’t do this but you get the idea). Thus, weapons fire is no longer abstracted but is instead based on physics. This is something I loved about Total Annihilation (1997) which had this (albeit they didn’t go nuts with the turrets). |
Wrecks | Persistent Wrecks | None | While we haven’t decided whether wrecks can be scavenged for resources yet, when units die, they persist on the map, creating a hazard and marking the scene of a great battle. |
Now, this is, by no means, remotely complete. If there are specific questions, please comment below. But in the meantime, here are some screenshots that I think will help visualize the differences.
Screenshots
Australia
This battle takes place in the Outback. The map is procedurally generated, with natural passes and pathways emerging from the terrain.
You can see tanks, mechs and soldiers. The units on both sides are UEF, but the blue side is actually mercenaries hired by the PHC. The Leopard 4 tank supplied by Germany is state-of-the-art early in the conflict (in the near future; today the Leopard 2A4 is, I believe, the latest). If you look closely, you can see the UEF beginning to deploy mechs.
Here’s the same battlefield from a recon drone:
Russia
This screenshot is from Siberia. In the 2030s, the Russian government leased millions of acres to conglomerates that would later join the Post-Human Coalition, expecting AI tech in return. (They didn’t get it.) The UEF is hunting a PHC Nexus. The cold is a real challenge for humans, less so for the PHC drones.
Zoomed out, you see this:
Colorado
While it is not yet decided whether Colorado will make it into the campaign or be referred to, green forested mountainous terrain will certainly be an option.
As you zoom out, the units will gradually convert to icons for better readability (before converting to full strategic abstraction). But here you can see a battle in progress.
So what makes Ashes of the Singularity Special?
Replayability matters. Being able to jump into a game with friends matters. Facing off against the AI and having that experience stay interesting matters. Having strategic decisions matter more than click speed matters. Holding critical territory matters.
And honestly, what I want from an RTS has changed. While PvP matchmaking is important, it’ll be there, I find myself preferring 2-vs-AI matches with a friend. I’m not sure why, but those games are simply more engaging. I think many players feel the same. That only works if maps are fresh every time and if the AI is interesting. I’d really like your opinions on this. I used to play Total Annihilation in PGL and now I find myself playing games 2 vs AI. I used to be cool! (actually, I was never cool).
So much of our engineering effort has gone into making replayability the defining feature: intelligent computer opponents, procedural maps, and a design centered on taking and holding territory. Protecting supply lines. Making every match feel like its own story. From those decisions, everything else follows.
We’ll be getting into the details about the United Earth Forces units soon. In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you.