Stardock Entertainment has officially announced a sequel to its real time strategy game, Ashes of the Singularity.
The sequel, appropriately titled Ashes of the Singularity 2, builds upon the massive battles of its predecessor while introducing a third faction to the battlefield: Humans.
Originally released in 2016, Ashes of the Singularity was based on a science fiction dystopia where humans were under assault from an AI Substrate they themselves had created. As the Substrate fought to wipe out its own creators, a Post-Human Coalition rose up from the ashes to fight the Substrate for control of the galaxy.
Ashes of the Singularity was a project made with lots of love but very little budget. There was no room for fancy animations, but there was a goal: Show off how it would look for tens of thousands of units to battle it out on a map the size of a small continent.
While Ashes of the Singularity certainly hit its goal the first time around, the developers wanted the sequel to have a little more oomph. "This time, we've got things that animate, and we get to bring in a third faction: the humans!" said the team in a press release.
Ashes of the Singularity 2 features an intense narrative campaign where players take on the role of a commanding officer in the United Earth Forces. With strategy and sheer willpower, the humans must fight to reclaim the Earth from the clutches of an AI gone off the rails and a Post-Human Coalition that is relentless in its quest to take control.
Players can flesh out their strategies with each faction's unique technologies, philosophies, and units as they battle it out across sprawling continents in epic battles for the very soul of the solar system.
Each faction offers its own point of view on reality: The Post-Human technologists who are seeking to usher in a new era following the rise of AI. The humans who developed the AI Substrate with their desire to reclaim the solar system and their destiny. The AI Substrate itself sees humans as having fulfilled their evolutionary purpose. All scrambling for control in a not-so-distant future that eerily mirrors the sudden rise of AI in today's world.
Players will experience changes to gameplay based on their faction choices, as each experiences its own specific needs and objectives.
Stardock views Ashes of the Singularity 2 as a unique experience due to its massive scale of gameplay. Rather than focusing on micromanaging small units or individuals, players will instead be tasked with managing massive armies in battles that span continents.
Players can expect base building and resource harvesting mechanics, and on-screen battles with hundreds of fully rendered 3D units duking it out for control. Everything is done on a mega scale, with bases being managed by regions instead of individual buildings.
The world of Ashes of the Singularity 2 is complex, and player actions will have a direct impact by either restoring land to its natural state or marking it for total destruction.
Ashes of the Singularity 2's science fiction narrative about a super-intelligent AI uprising admittedly sounds a little on the nose for a reality where massive corporations are investing heavily into AI technologies.
Even Stardock Entertainment, the publisher behind Ashes of the Singularity 2, has a history of utilizing AI in game development. The publisher was previously behind Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova, a title that generated eight hours of character voices with artificial intelligence.
In addition to the voice acting, generative AI was used to create maps and lore for Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova. In an interview with Windows Central's Sean Endicott, Stardock Entertainment CEO Brad Wardell shared that the company used Microsoft Azure for its generative AI computing needs and trained its models on Stardock's own videos.
Despite Stardock's history with generative AI, Ashes of the Singularity 2 does not currently indicate on its Steam page that generative AI was used in the development process.
Ashes of the Singularity 2 does not yet have a confirmed release date, but you can wishlist the game now on Steam.
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