Humanity long ago shed its mortal skin and developed into beings of pure consciousness. But the Singularity is a thing of the past and the very future of human existence is being threatened. Though the post-humans wield godlike power, they find themselves at war for domination of not just the Milky Way but all galaxies with Haalee, the sentient AI, who is bent on saving the universe from post-human predation.

Pouring your human consciousness into thousands of deadly constructs, the time has come for you to join epic confrontations where countless robotic manifestations of war smash each other into scrap only to be replaced as factories convert all available matter into a steady stream of fresh war machines. In this war for ever-more intelligence, where control of matter to fuel the expansion of computing power is the only goal, the struggle will inevitably consume the galaxy...one planet at a time.

The v1.2 update is adding the newly enhanced campaign which is complete with full voiceover for all dialogue, new missions, and new cutscenes. In addition to the campaign, v1.2 has the new “Substrate Eradicator” and “PHC Athena” units, single-player Hall of Fame, Global Chat channel, substantial UI and AI improvements, and more.

“Players will experience a lot more immersion with our campaign improvements,” said CEO and President of Stardock, Brad Wardell. “We brought in voice actors to record dialogue in both English and German, plus we’ve added new missions and some excellent cutscenes, with plans to do more in the future as well.”

Each side has a new unit added to their roster in v1.2. The Substrate can now access the “Eradicator” unit, an expensive and slow-moving long range cruiser with heavy weaponry that is extremely difficult to kill. The PHC gains the “Athena” unit, a small and fast short range cruiser with high energy laser bolts, thermal lasers, and a plasma bolt cannon.

A new Global Chat channel now also makes it possible for gamers from around the world to see who’s playing at all times so that finding opponents is much easier. The Hall of Fame adds the ability to compare single-player campaign and scenario scores to other players’.

In addition to the update, a new CPU-focused benchmark designed to simulate the strain of a massive 3v3 battle on a large map rounds out the v1.2 update. “This benchmark is for the gaming enthusiasts,” said Wardell. “This will let them test their multi-core CPU scaling and see how they can best optimize Ashes’ performance.”

A real-time strategy game on a scale never before seen, where even the smallest units have diverse, independent weapons systems on them and every shot fired has its own targeting solution and ballistics model, Ashes of the Singularity explores entirely new and engaging gameplay fundamentals coupled with jaw-dropping visuals. With literally thousands of units acting independently on screen at the same time, players are introduced to a familiar infrastructure of real-time strategy gameplay while focusing their attention not on small engagements between a handful of units, but instead waging large-scale wars across multiple simultaneous battlefronts.

Ashes of the Singularity offers innovative multiplayer alongside its epic single-player campaign that tells the tale of the Singularity and complications arising from humanity's evolution away from physical form. League structures, leaderboards, stats and other features will be announced as development continues, powered by Stardock's cloud-based Project Tachyon metagaming services (led by lead architect Adrian Luff, who helped build Blizzard's Battle.net).

Key Features:

• Massive numbers of units in the world that can be easily organized into armies that allow players to fight wars across several different fronts simultaneously.
• The world's first multi-core real-time AI allowing for a non-cheating AI that can beat most players.
• A story-driven, non-linear campaign that tells the story of a United Earth in the 23rd century.
• A focus on single player replayability while including a wealth of multiplayer features.
• The future-proofed Nitrous 3D engine whose 64-bit, multi-core foundation supports DirectX 11, DirectX 12 and multiple GPUs.