HomeNewsIndustrial Annihilation

Industrial Annihilation is a Planetary Annihilation successor with factory buildingNow seeking funding

Now seeking funding

Image credit:Galactic Annihilation

Image credit:Galactic Annihilation

Factories and conveyor belts on a sandy planet in Industrial Annihilation.

Some of the makers of planet-tossing real-time strategy gamePlanetary Annihilationare working on a sequel, calledIndustrial Annihilation, which aims to blend together RTS combat with factory building. It’s now in its last week of investment funding and is aiming to release into early access sometime this spring.

Here’s a “pre-alpha visualisation” from a couple months ago, which we completely missed at the time:

Industrial Annihilation - Announce TrailerA trailer for Industrial Annihilation.Watch on YouTube

Industrial Annihilation - Announce Trailer

Cover image for YouTube video

You can find a few more details about the project on itsofficial siteand itsStartEngine funding page, including that they hope it will feature a singleplayer campaign as well as co-op and PvP battles. These things are - as ever, frankly - subject to change.

StartEngine is a funding platform, but in the Fig rather than Kickstarter vein. You need to make a minimum investment of $500 and you are investing in the developer, Galactic Annihilation, rather than in the game itself - and as with all investing, there is a risk you could lose your money.

When Planetary Annihilation first launched it was technically impressive, but also highly demanding of both your PC and your brain. Keeping track of multiple bases, multiple fronts, on multiple spheroid battlefields, in the midst of a fast-paced, competitive multiplayer match seemed pretty impossible, as frail, fleshy Brendy explainedin his review. A standalone expansion, Titans, expanded its singleplayer ambitionsbut with many of the same flaws. Possibly there’s a reason most video games take place on a single plane.

The game’s story only gets more complicated from there. Three years later, in 2018, Planetary Annihilation and a small group of developers spun off from Uber Entertainment to create a new companyand started releasing patches for the game again, work which continued until 2021. Uber Entertainment, meanwhile, re-branded as Star Theory Games and were contracted to work onKerbal Space Program 2, until KSP2 publisher Take-Two tried to buy them, Mavor and his co-founders rejected the deal, and Take-Two insteadpoached Star Theory’s staff, set up a new studio, and transferred development to it. Star Theory shut down shortly thereafter.

None of which is particularly relevant to Industrial Annihilation, which I think seems like a cool idea. Although it might be relevant if you’re thinking of investing.