Ashes of the Singularity is an RTS game with massive battles and the option to zoom way out of the battlefield. At the time of writing, Metacritic awards. Epic sci-fi strategy warfare has some violence, tame play. Read Common Sense Media's Ashes of the Singularity review, age rating,.

was released last week after months in early access, promising huge Supreme Commander-style battles and furious tactical decision-making. But is it simply walking in the giant robot footsteps of its predecessors? Brendan tells us wot he thinks.One of the lines of Ashes’ marketing goes: “win the battle with strategy, not speed”. I am here to tell you: that is nonsense.

This is about as speed-clicky an RTS as you can get. There are parts of its design that will (theoretically) make you consider your approach more thoughtfully. But make no mistake, this is as traditional as shepherd’s pie. Even an AI opponent on the Normal setting will be pumping out tens of actions every second, so have your murder tendons ready. You will need to be fast.Ashes has been pitching itself for the past year as a spiritual successor to Total Annihilation. In many ways, it fits this description, and maybe too well.

As an artificial intelligence you are part of the Post-Human Coalition, fighting an enemy known as “splinters” – supposedly drones without autonomous thought. It’s a silly setup but it’s all that is really required.

The game has a story mode called ‘Ascendancy Wars’ (more on this later), a skirmish mode against (other) AIs and the usual multiplayer options.There are also a few extra ‘scenarios’. King of the Hill is a defensive scrap for survival against waves and waves of increasingly difficult armies. Overlord is a 3 v 1 match up, pitting you and two lesser-brained robofriends against a nasty AI enemy with some of your unit options made unavailable.As far as the minute-to-minute war machine goes, all is present. You capture waypoints blessed with metal or radioactive deposits, then plop down metal extractors or radioactive sucker-uppers to eat the material and add it to your income (later you can build an energy-enhancing construct on these waypoints to increase your uptake). Factories pump out small units – speedy scouts, rocket-launching “archers”, cheap “brutes”, medical repair bots and so on.Meanwhile, armories and sky factories add bombers, fighters, anti-aircraft tanks, powerful “sniper” units and wonderful, wonderful artillery. These latter tanks launch a gorgeous volley of rockets at enemies, even if they are out of sight. They can do this because the edge of the game’s “shroud” will glimmer with red if any enemy units are close to your own.

Eventually you’ll be able to make tier 3 vehicles and “dreadnoughts” – huge capital floaters that can be upgraded the more they fight.This “upgrading” feature isn’t limited to the big guns, however. A third resource, called Quantum, can be supped from the earth with another building. This allows you to upgrade the health, firepower and radar range of your entire force, as well as increase the storage capacity for the other resources. It’s also a kind of battle cash you can use to summon orbital abilities – things like revealing terrain, unleashing a plasma storm, dropping an engineer or a squad of bots far from HQ.I was pleasantly surprised (miffed) when an enemy AI smashed my swarm of 25 bombers with a single blast of the destructive orbital strike, just as they were about to raid a little metal farm it had built. On the run book 2.

This AI went on to win the game by collecting enough Turinium – something gathered by holding power stations. The other way it could have won is by flattening my central “nexus” – my home base.

I got off easy.This all looks wonderful and seeing artillery shells arc through the sky isn’t the only time you’ll smile at the scale and grandeur of your army’s skirmishes. Queuing bots so that they march out of your factories to form unstoppable columns is just as interesting as it has always been. But this is the thing – it is just as interesting. Not more.Ashes is deep in the shadow of its great loves and entrenched in a way that makes it, well, sort of tired.

There is nothing very novel about huge numbers of troops – we have been able to command such forces for decades. And while units like the Artemis artillery and the more advanced Dreadnoughts are fun to steamroll around with, some of the units are so bland they don’t even stand out against the snowy, cratered ground. And they all look more or less the same, there’s very little distinct about the design or operation of each toy. Some vehicles of the Substrate (the second faction) are fun, like the dreadnought that looks like a giant brain in a pod. But most of them are identikit alien wobblecraft.You can highlight a bunch of troops and click a command to form an “army”.

This is one of the things the game emphasises. The idea behind composing armies is that each swarm will be the sum of its innards. So an army with a lot of heavy, slow dreadnoughts will be slower but pack more punch.

An army with a lot of scouts will see its overall speed increased, meaning it (theoretically) pays not to ignore the lightweight speedy guys, like you would in so many RTS games. But this “sum-of-its-parts” mechanic (the devs call them ‘meta-units’) is never really all that obvious. You can stack a battalion with medics and notice some survivability but apart from that I never really became consciously aware of any increase in speed or range.This might be because there was no viable way to measure any differences apart from making a purposefully distinct group. And in the heat of battle, you don’t have time to or resources to experiment. A lot of armies end up being such a mish-mash that you stop caring about composition and simply go for pushing hard with big numbers. Getting the next batch of metal extractors is, as always, more important than tinkering with your troops.The most I thought about the make up of my forces was how best to complement ground troops with bombers, and how many fighters should come along for the ride. But how is this any different from the way you simply group things in other strategy games?

In the end, it feels no different at all.I can forgive any RTS that holds tradition in high esteem but there are other things that irk me about Ashes. In the Ascendancy Wars – the story mode – there are 11 planets that make up the threads of a sci-fi tale. They swivel between being annoyingly hand-holdy and boot-to-the-balls debilitating. At first the desire seems to be to introduce the player to the different concepts one by one – ground units, resource capturing, the tech tree.

For the first three missions everything seems fine. Then the fourth mission shows up and punches you in the kidney. “This isn’t a tutorial,” it seems to say, “this is your gruesome death.”This infuriating mission tasks you with holding out against waves of various enemy units with very little in the way of available resources. So far, so good. Then ten minutes into the mission, the tutor bot pops up and says: “oh yes, by the way, there are dozens of aircraft coming to blow you up.

I guess you should have this.” At which point he grants you – at the very last minute – the option to build AA-guns and AA vehicles, none of which you can build fast enough because the airplanes are basically already on top of you, bombing your engineers to death.It is intensely frustrating to have to repeat what is essentially a tutorial mission half a dozen times. The result is a straitjacketing scene in which you have to wait for some videogame Clippy to pop up and bless you with an ability, one which you ALREADY KNOW, right from the start, is necessary to survive. I’ve seen a lot of players complain about the difficulty of this mission, so I know I’m not alone.

It can be overcome, but it’s such a spike it makes your teeth grind.Compare this to, which also sought to revive the grand scale, spirit and pace of Total Annihilation and SupCom. PA had its problems (it was a rushed and the devs sold a follow-up game by tweaking some things and then simply adding the sub-name ). But at least it approached the revival of its inspirations not only with a dash of originality, allowing you to invade and swarm over multiple, spherical planets, but also with a lot of its own visual character.It was just as tough-as-nails as this outing can be, but it brought so much more to the table. I can’t in good faith recommend Ashes when the true inheritor of Total Annihilation’s twisted and burnt crown already exists in the form of Uber Entertainment’s interplanetary wreck session.I’m making this sound worse than it is. For anyone yearning to see tanks flooding in and out of canyons in a way that brings them right back to 1997, you may well have what you want. But if the veil of nostalgia doesn’t tempt you, you’re not going to be convinced.Overall, Ashes isn’t bad, it’s just very plain. Gorgeous, but plain.

There’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before and done better. And I certainly don’t think it has the spark that made Company of Heroes so excellent, despite what the developer (even if you can make a “veteran” of your biggest tank).

You can win the battle here with speed, and maybe a little strategy. But, being entirely honest, I wouldn’t recommend battling at all, in singleplayer at least.Ashes of the Singularity is available now. We’ll have a close look at the multiplayer side of the game next week.

• Spectacular, large-scale battles;
• Very good multiplayer;
• It’s all about strategy;
• Maps designed to enhance the strategical layer;
• Sound effects, graphics and optimization.

• The story campaign is beyond redemption;
• Unpolished AI and single player;
• Tactical layer is uneven;
• It may be too difficult for casual RTS fans;
• Lacks visual variety between units, buildings, or even whole factions;
• Boring and repetitive map appearance;
• Dull interface.

Ashes of the Singularity is an RTS to the bone, designed for people who want their games to provide something more than spectacular battles, although you certainly cannot say that those are scarce in the production. On the contrary, there’s plenty of them and they are stunning. Unfortunately, many elements of Stardock's work are overshadowed by the fact that the developers have focused primarily on the strategic layer of their game, neglecting the tactical aspect. The consequences of this decision are numerous, with only some of them being positive. And the negative ones, unfortunately, are far more noticeable.

The game takes us to moderately distant future, namely the end of the 22nd century. People have abandoned their biological bodies and uploaded their awareness and intelligence into computer frames, from there on calling themselves the Post-Human Coalition. Furthermore, a new substance, turinium, was discovered, allowing this new, electronic intelligence to greatly increase its capabilities. Unfortunately, the usual human greed has spurred them to transform numerous other planets into said substance. Such a period of ravenous expansion could not have lasted forever. And here's where the other faction comes into fray – the Substrate, an AI trying to suppress the selfish humanoids.

The tendency to depict our species as a civilization hungry for raw materials and leading the world to destruction is becoming increasingly noticeable in video games and movies alike. To be honest, an original solution now would be to show the human kind in a positive light rather than going with the flow of the pop culture. Admittedly, the story does feature a certain amount of originality, but it is not particularly engaging content. The narrative chose the campaign as primary means of storytelling. Unfortunately, said campaign looks more like an extensive tutorial than a complete set of missions, and this fact certainly does not help the game. With that being said, the game does not particularly emphasize the story as such, although RTS games that can boast a great story and well-designed campaign are not that rare either.

An RTS with issues

Some problems with the AI emerge both in skirmish mode and in single player campaign. In skirmishes against the computer, the AI's skill is very uneven, which becoms one of the game's major shortcomings. The computer can either allow us to do whatever we want, or steamroll us in the span of minutes. This would normally depend on our chosen difficulty level, but we are talking here about something that happens when switching from 'easy' to 'normal'. As there are several other, even higher difficulty levels, I find it hard to believe that this is what the developers' intended to do. If we decide to look past the antics of the AI, we will either win the battles with little to no effort, or be doomed to lose them, regardless of the amount of sweat produced by our brain cells. In the beginning, the campaign leads us by the hand, lulling us into a false sense of security, only for the fourth mission to hit us like a ton of bricks. Some opinions on the Internet go so far as to say that the mission is outright impossible to complete. Still, it would be forgivable, if it actually felt like the events depended on our skills. In this case, however, 'it has to be a bug' is the first thing that comes to mind, especially when we can see the computer play dirty, e.g. when the game gives us a few seconds before an air raid to build anti-aircraft guns, and it takes a lot more time to actually build them. These shortcomings, or perhaps should I say: this peculiar difficulty level design, makes it virtually impossible to have fun in the single player mode.

The only mode in which the game is able to spread its wings is multiplayer. It is here where Ashes of the Singularity shines, allowing the players to test their creativity and exploit mistakes made by the enemy. A strategy that will lead us to victory must incorporate more than just battlefield tactics, it also has to consider things like the selection of proper units, their coordination, resource management, and a strategically sound selection of places to strike, as well as many other aspects. The battles are often fought by thousands of units, and a larger force is not necessary to win a skirmish; the side that wins is the side that is better suited for the given task at the moment. However, we must remember that we are fighting not only using the military, but also the economy. Furthermore, we should always plan three steps forward. This is not a game where victory comes as a result of luck and playing by ear. Sometimes the outcome is decided the moment some wrong or right decisions have been made at the beginning of the round, or because the opponent did something we did not expect. Taking all of the above into account, we can be pretty sure that every skirmish we won was not by accident, and each subsequent victory will require a certain amount of creativity on our side. To be honest, players less familiar with the RTS genre may be discouraged seeing such an extensive strategic layer. All the more so if the issues with the AI in single player mode keep them from being able to train freely.

There’s no hiding the fact that the game is very uneven also on the tactical level. We build our units, then we can form them into armies that can be optimized for a particular purpose. Now, when a skirmish begins, the system performs flawlessly. The problem arises when the gameplay picks up the pace and we have to command a large number of formations. That's when things stop making sense, because we have to simultaneously give orders and queue the construction of new buildings and units, requiring finger coordination of a professional pianist and leaving virtually no time for anything else. And so the game which, according to its creators, aimed to emphasize the tactical side of things becomes a frantic clicker that has us sending battalions of whatever we are able to lay our hands on.

A lot of the same

While the scale of battles may be grand, their diversity is anything but. The limited diversity of units is somewhat surprising, given how many of them appear in nearly every match. The whole map may be consumed by fire and overflowing with the heat of battle, but wherever we go the scenery looks virtually the same. In addition, corresponding unit classes, for example the dreadnoughts (the strongest units in the game), are very similar to each other. Although the graphic designs in general leave nothing to be desired, the differences between, e.g. two dreadnoughts from different factions are meager at best. Besides, placing a large amount of land-based frigates and cruiser in one place results in the creation of something resembling an anthill, where it is impossible to see anything without resorting to zoom.

To do the developers justice, greater unit diversity would have probably resulted in an even less comprehensible battlefield, though perhaps some truly original designs might have solved the issue. Moreover, when looking at the UI you cannot help but fall under the impression that being understandable was not particularly high on the developers' priority list. The interface is not very user-friendly, especially at the beginning, and when it comes to the visual aspects.. let's just say it could have been better. Right now we see some blue squares with a vague summary of the most important information in the game. It is even worse in the case of buildings. All buildings within a faction look very similar and it will take us some time before we will be able to recognize them on the fly. Building designs come off noticeably worse than the armies they build. Armies at least provide a pleasant aesthetic experience, though mainly when they appear in bigger numbers.

The fact that there are only two sides to the conflict does not help either. Units and buildings from different factions vary much more than the ones from within the same army, but I still feel that this is not enough. Both side are pretty similar plot-wise, and thus employ similar technology. At times, one gets the impression that the only thing that sets them apart is the color of the paint. But even this is not sufficiently emphasized to avoid a situation where, once ours and enemy forces mix in combat, we are not able to tell whether we are winning the battle or even how much of our army is still there. Units' combat capabilities are also quite similar. The PHC has slightly stronger basic units while the Substrate has the advantage when it comes to specialized units. In practice, however, they are almost identical and there is no point in developing dedicated strategies for one of the factions.

The visual design of the maps, however, is the one aspect in which the game is really appaling. We have white maps, green maps, and brown maps. The colors are of course snow, grass, and sand, respectively, but the lack of anything to decorate the maps with and the constant monotony, occasionally stirred by some (repeatable) mountains, are not something that would leave a good impression. Still, it should be noted that although visually the maps fall short, the strategic options they offer leave nothing to complain about. Raw material distribution (metal and radioactive substances) on the map directly affects the gameplay, and that's where creators have really put some effort, creating some truly interesting arenas, each of them requiring a completely different approach to achieve victory.

A feast for the senses

In terms of graphics, the game delivers in spades. For the players with the latest GPUs and Windows 10 await benefits brought in by DirectX 12 (for the time being only AMD products can employ its potential). The game experiences a significant jump in the number of fps when using DX12, which, together with high-end visual settings and the huge scale of battles, can provide a truly stunning spectacle. However, even the owners of older computers should not be disappointed. Even on lower settings the game looks very good, and its good optimization enables normal gameplay even on somewhat dated hardware. Additionally, the game comes with a benchmark that will check how well your computer can handle large-scale enagegements.

The music matches the atmosphere of the game very well. I would even go as far as to say that it is crucial in building that atmosphere from the very first moment. Unimposing during skirmishes, it does not distract from the gameplay. Sound effects, especially spontaneous noises made by various units, are another important ambiance-building factor. However, the experience is at its best first and foremost during the biggest of battles.

Summary

Ashes of the Singularity is definitely a game created for the veterans of the genre. It will appeal to those looking for entertainment AND challenge, those who would like to try a game where, through time and effort, they can join the elite circle of the most talented players. It’s not likely to be as successful as Supreme Commander, the comparisons to which come off as unavoidable. Both games are designed for the same type of players, so if someone liked SC, they will definitely enjoy playing Ashes of the Singularity. It needs to be emphasized, however, that the experience is spoiled by the issues present in single player mode, and it is in multiplayer where the game truly realizes its potential. In multiplayer the game excels at all the aspects that are crucial to a good RTS. Still, this doesn’t change the fact that at the end of the day the game feels simply unfinished.

Adam Stefañski Gamepressure.com