Planetary Annihilation: Impressions of the Galactic War

We've had our eye on Planetary Annihilation for a long time, and for several reasons. Primarily, because it looks fantastic. This is real-time strategy played out on a dizzying scale, with players sweeping gigantic sci-fi armies into massive skirmishes, with nukes, orbital strikes and huge amounts of blowing shit up along the way.

We'd wanted to pick it up for some time now, but as has been well documented, it wasn't a cheap purchase. It was first made available to those who had backed it as Kickstarter project; those who stumped up enough cash were given early access. Uber Entertainment then threw it open to gamers on Steam via Early Access, but they charged a pretty penny in the process, matching the price paid by those earliest of backers, for the sake of fairness. That was too much for our slender budget, so we passed, and continued to watch from afar.

Slowly the price has lowered and lowered, until in the most recent Steam Sale it was momentarily available for little over a tenner. That low price point (still not insignificant for an unfinished game in Early Access) was enough to tempt us. Well, the temporarily lower pricing and the fact that a few weeks ago Uber released the single-player part of the game. That was the missing piece of the jigsaw as far as we were concerned and thus our hand dipped into our digital wallet.

This preview isn't really focusing on the multiplayer. The community has already been in place for a while, and people have been battling each other on Uber's servers for long enough for our thoughts and opinions to be a little out of date. Also, at the time of writing we're still noobish enough to have no interest in getting the undoubted spanking we'd receive at the hands of another player. If truth be told, we've never really buzzed off online multiplayer when it comes to strategy games, we're amongst those who prefer a really meaty campaign, and that's exactly what has been served up here.

The whole thing is encased in a really neat system. You're an awoken commander and you must search systems for skills that improve and change your tactics on the field. Some systems are empty save for a new tech skill that is revealed upon a simple scan (we'll get to what these different techs are in a bit), and you can either add to your collection or discard it. If you've already filled up your slots you can swap out for another tech, but the one that is replaced is subsequently deleted and can't be used again.

This leads to a really careful balancing act, as you must assemble a collection of tech skills that best represents your playstyle. Getting skills that you don't normally use will affect the way you play and force you to try new things, and it keeps things fresh. You can't rely on the same tactics time and time again. There are preset builds that you can unlock as you play, but the techs you discover as you play are a variable factor that keeps things interesting. You can unlock the ability to specialise in certain areas more quickly, or make it cheaper to build specific units or structures. There's a decent range of options from what we can tell, and we've yet to see them all.

When you're not collecting new abilities you're fighting battles. Bloody big battles. There's an added edge, because if your commander bites the bullet then it's game over and your whole campaign is over. This perma-death feature heaps significance onto each battle, and as the AI is no slouch, there's every chance that if you're not careful and organised, your computer-controlled opponent will find a chink in your armour and exploit it to your detriment.

Quickly it becomes apparent that there's a fine line between expansion of your bases, and striking at your enemy in a timely manner. The maps here are spherical, so instead of fighting over the normal patch of four-sided land, battlefields are played out from PA's unique perspective and you can attack your enemy from any side. There's some different backgrounds/types of map, from metallic planets that have something of the Deathstar about them, to volcanic moons and more standard planet types. Natural geology creates organic bottlenecks and can offer protection from enemy units, which are produced here in the hundreds. At times you can assemble massive armies of tanks or planes, and use them to blitz through an enemy's base as you seek out their commander (once this unit is taken out, it's game over, and post-battle you get that commander's skill and can add it to your collection if there's either room in your loadout or if you want to trade it for one of your own).

Collecting metal and energy allows for expansion, both in terms of the buildings you can construct, and the amount of units you can build. A robust economy is essential. There's certain points on the map - ore deposits - that must be harvested, and base expansion tends to take place around the more plentiful collections of ore. Beyond that you can build home defences of various kinds (lasers, anti-air missiles, ion pulses) to protect you from the occasional enemy push. Your own army is constructed in specialist facilities, and the availability of these is largely dictated by the techs that you collect as you search the system. We played with tanks a lot, bots occasionally, and are waiting for more hands-on time with aircraft and naval fleets.

Where it gets really saucy is in the fact that you can load troops and units into orbit and settle nearby planets, moons or asteroids, and then use these facilities in a way that will help you later on (for example, if you've got the right tech skills, you can turn an asteroid into a deadly battering ram and smash it into your enemies planet-side base). There's plenty of really cool ways of defeating your enemies, whether that be from more traditional methods such as a Zerg-rush of sorts in the early game with a huge fleet of tanks, or for a more PA-specific planet-smashing asteroid attack endgame.

It's a nice system, and we've only really scratched the surface here. We're impressed with the depth on offer, the different configurations that are possible, and the sheer amount of replayability that the campaign offers. We can't see ourselves getting bored of it any time soon. Even if we did, that's less of an issue for us, because after all we only dropped a tenner on the game, but for fans who've invested much more (nearly £70 at its most expensive) it's reassuring that Uber are delivering a robust experience. Whether it's worth that much, we're not sure. If you're one of those that invested that heavily, you're not just paying for the game; you're paying so that studio can work autonomously, you're paying to support them beyond the norm.

PA recently made headlines again when it the Early Access build of the game landed at retail, despite being unfinished. To be fair, while it might not be polished to perfection, it's still a fairly solid package. It's perhaps more controversial because buying it from your local retailer will actually set you back more than simply downloading the game via Steam. At the end of the day there's enough there to justify a discounted purchase, more than enough in fact. But when you start talking about £40 quid for an unfinished game it starts to make us a little more nervous; you'd have to really want to support the developers, and if you feel that way you've probably already slapped your money on the table.

Either way, we're not going to tell you not to buy Planetary Annihilation, because from what we've played so far, it's a decent game (and if you're into multiplayer shenanigans, you're going to be well catered for too, with multiple players competing on huge planet-sized maps). The scale is huge, the single-player campaign is well designed and replayable, there's depth, excitement, and there's undeniable ambition on display. Our only advice is to wait until the game is available at a price that you're comfortable with, and if that means waiting for a little while, then so be it.