Ashes of the Singularity

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Ashes of the Singularity is a science fiction real-time strategy game developed by Oxide Games and Stardock Entertainment. It released for Windows on March 31, 2016. Built on the Nitrous Engine, the game is known for huge battles with thousands of units on large maps, requiring strong hardware. It features two main factions, the Post-Human Coalition (digital descendants of humans) and the Substrate, plus a rogue AI led by Haalee. The story is set in 2179, in a post-singularity future where humanity has become advanced digital beings and battles across the stars.

To manage the massive battles, players can group many units into “meta-units” that act cohesively, allowing complex strategies. The game emphasizes 64-bit multi-core processing and high-end PCs. An expansion, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, released on November 10, 2016, added more units, maps, and structures and raised the maximum players from 8 to 16. Escalation was merged into the base game on February 16, 2017. A Steam Early Access version was available starting October 22, 2015 ahead of the full release.

The game’s heavy use of DirectX 12 and parallel computing has made it a common benchmark, though it sparked controversy when Nvidia GPUs performed worse than AMD during early beta due to asynchronous compute features that AMD supported in hardware but Nvidia handled in software at the time.

There was interest in a Linux version from fans, and in 2019 Stardock’s Brad Wardell suggested Linux support was possible, but as of November 2024 no Linux release has appeared.

Reception was mixed to average. Metacritic aggregates place it in the middle of the pack; IGN gave it 7.7/10, praising its strategic depth, PC Gamer scored it 75/100, and GameSpot offered a more mixed verdict.