Planetary Annihilation Wiki – Everything you need to know about the game

Planetary Annihilation is an upcoming Real Time Strategy video game that is currently being developed by Uber Entertainment (Outland Games and Toy Rush) which is staffed by numerous video game industry veterans, including staff members that previously worked on Total Annihilation, one of the most successfully received (and still played to this day) RTS games released. 

Planetary Annihilation is planned to launch on Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux and will be available at retail and via digital download. The game has went through various stages of development and testing with a final release planned for some time in 2014, there is currently no solid release date. 

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Factions
• 4. Gameplay

Development

Uber Entertainment is a development studio that has, (like many other developers in recent times to maintain their product integrity) went down the path of crowd funding rather than gain their funding through an investor. Planetary Annihilation was publicly revealed on August 15th 2012 alongside their plans to use Kickstarter as a funding platform with an initial goal of $900,000 alongside a full CG animated introduction pledge trailer that showed planned gameplay mechanics.

When backers first discovered that the game has ties to the massively popular real time strategy game Total Annihilation, the pledges came rolling in at a staggering pace with $450,000 being accumulated in only 5 days. Following the initial success of the beginning stages of the funding process Uber Entertainment announced their plans for the first wave of stretch goals that would be unlocked by raising a certain amount of money for the project. As these stretch goals were unveiled the funding process for Planetary Annihilation became further invigorated by promises of the inclusion of naval units and planets that would be comprised of large bodies of water at the 1.1 million dollar mark.

At 1.3 million Uber Entertainment would include Gas Giants and orbiting platforms with metal planets arriving if the 1.5 million mark was crossed. At the crossing of 1.8 million the Galactic War feature would be included, accompanied by a full orchestral original score if $2,000,000 was earned. At 2.1 million there would be a final stretch goal achieved which would include a behind the scenes making of documentary detailing the games development process.  As the days rolled on and the stretch goals were met, the project was on track to making a mark on the Kickstarter platforms history by becoming the 11th project on the platform to raise over one million dollars.

With the passing of the 15th day of the Planetary Annihilation campaign the title had already reached its initial $9,000,000 goal, but when the campaign ended on September 14th of 2012 the campaign had already amassed nearly $2,228,000 through Kickstarter and a further $101,000 through PayPal. All the stretch goals were reached and unlocked and since then the game has experienced favourable feedback from the fan base as it has went through its various stages of testing from Alpha, Beta to Gamma. Following this feedback the game has now been scheduled for a release some time in 2014.

Story

The plot of Planetary Annihilation is deceptively complex. While a player would expect the game to have a fairly flat story given its galactic scale and focus on war, the plot actually goes deeper than that. The Commanders who stride across the battlefields haven’t always existed as the warriors we know them as today. “They were built. Then abandoned. Now, they’re coming back from an extended dormancy”.

Keep in mind that the faction names and commander titles are currently place holders as Uber Entertainment are allowing the backers who helped fund the game to name the factions from 4 available titles. The remnants of a war waged long ago are slowly being restored to a functional level of operation by a now awakened commander and as they do so the pieces of the story are all falling into place.

The game’s official description of the story reads: “Did I have a name? Yes that I did remember. I was designated as Dominus. I struggled to repair parts of my memory core that would tell me more, but I soon discovered it would take more than a few nanoseconds to do so. In the meantime, I began to explore the world I found myself on. It was not long until I found others like myself. I repaired and reactivated those that I could, but there were far more that could not be saved. Those that could be helped were able to access memories that I could not or simply did not have. Some kind of battle had taken place here long ago, judging by chemical analysis readings of the air and soil that showed traces of artificial radioactive isotopes. That meant nuclear detonation.”

Factions

The names of the factions up for consideration are:

• Pax Machina – Machine of Peace
• Legonis Machina – Legion of the Machine
• The First Empire
• Imperium

The names of the faction leader up for consider are (all the names seem to have a nearly Roman Slant on them, perhaps Legonis Machina is winning?):

• Terminus
• Scipio
• Dominus
• Invictus

Gameplay

Gameplay in Planetary Annihilation is large in both its scope and ambition, the games lead developer Jon Mavor has said that games will vary in complexity and match time. This is due to the planet based combat map which will include various types of planets (detailed in the development portion of this wiki) and asteroids which can become weaponized. All these worlds can be conquered and made your own as the tide of war goes back and forth between players.

They can however also be destroyed and removed from the game because they exist in a dynamic gameplay world wherein they can be Annihilated by dropping asteroids on them, this is one of the major gameplay focuses that Uber Entertainment are pushing. Given the galactic scale of the game, the worlds need to be monitored to avoid being captured by the enemy. This will of course require a lot of units, it is because of this that Mavor has said that one of the design goals in the game is to have “a million” in game units available for deployment.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.