Ashes of the Singularity

At times, I can't help but marvel at Ashes of the Singularity. Watching a battlefield gradually pack in thousands of hover-tanks and carriers as supply lines stretch and groan to support massive war efforts is intoxicating. There's a wonderment here...

Ashes of the Singularity is a solid title, but ultimately too unambitious in areas that matter. It demonstrates it can do amazing things with tons and tons of units on screen, but fails to provide compelling reasons to play beyond that.

Ashes of the Singularity delivers thoughtful real-time strategy with tons of units in play, but drab maps and a poor story.

Once you break free from the tactics-focused mindset of most RTS games, Ashes of the Singularity is a challenging, engrossing, and cerebral exercise in strategy that has me mentally iterating on army compositions, build timings, and board deployment schemes even when I’m not playing it. The campaign comes across as an unwanted stepchild beside the strong multiplayer, and the terrain art is dull and uninspired, yet Oxide has delivered on the promise of bringing back capital-S Strategy to the RTS space. This is a warzone where the shrewd general looking at the bigger picture will triumph over the fast-thinking ace with lightning hotkeys.