Planetary Annihilation | |
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Developer(s) | Uber Entertainment |
Publisher(s) | Uber Entertainment |
Director(s) | Jon Mavor |
Producer(s) | Marc Scattergood Jeremy Ables |
Designer(s) | Jon Mavor |
Programmer(s) | Jon Mavor William Howe-Lott Michael Robbins |
Artist(s) | Steve Thompson Ben Golus Andrew Chistophersen Aung Oo |
Composer(s) | Howard Mostrom |
Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux |
Release date(s) | September 5, 2014 |
Genre(s) | Real-time strategy |
Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Aggregate score | |
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Aggregator | Score |
Metacritic | 62/100 |
Review scores | |
Publication | Score |
Eurogamer | 6/10 |
IGN | 4.8/10 |
Planetary Annihilation is a real-time strategy PC game developed by Uber Entertainment, whose staff include several industry veterans who worked on Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. An expansion pack for Planetary Annihilation has been released which adds powerful Titan-class units, called Planetary Annihilation: Titans.
In interviews with PC Gamer and Joystiq, lead game developer Jon Mavor commented that the game's complexity and playtime can vary, from half-hour, 2-player battles to lengthy matches with potentially 40-players. However, at release 40-player matches were not yet available.Planetary Annihilation features a planet-based map system with different types of planets and asteroid like moons. Players will be able to conquer other planets and even entire systems on maps said to include "hundreds of worlds," through the Galactic War. These planets are dynamic in that they can be 'annihilated' using other planets or catalysts, a major focus for Uber Entertainment. The game's creators have also stated that Planetary Annihilation will resemble something of the 1997 RTS Total Annihilation as its focus is more towards 'macro' gameplay as opposed to 'micro' gameplay. In development updates, Mavor has commented that "a million" in-game units is a design goal of the development team. The player(s) lose when their last commander is destroyed.
Jon Mavor wrote the graphics engine for Total Annihilation. He was also the lead programmer on Supreme Commander. The game's art style is done by Steve Thompson, who previously worked on the art for Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. Voice actor John Patrick Lowrie, who did all the narrations for Total Annihilation, is doing the narrations for Planetary Annihilation as well.
According to Mavor, while game visualization began in May 2012, just three months prior to the game's public announcement, the game concept itself had been in development for approximately three years by that time. Additionally, the server and game engine technologies that would underpin the game had been in development for several years prior to the game's public revelation, with some of the server technology having already made its way into PlayFab, Uber Entertainment's back-end server network.