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 v2.1 update rebalances several maps and adds a single-player observer mode, an option for disabling supply lines, unranked matches, and new maps.

"In addition to making some adjustments with AI visibility and balance, we've added features that players have been asking for, like the single-player observer mode," said Derek Paxton, Stardock's Vice President of Entertainment. "You can learn how the AI makes decisions by watching it battle during customized games using any settings or parameters you want."

The latest v2.1 update for Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation releases during a special Steam sale where players can save 50% off of the game from February 23 - March 2. The sale is a great opportunity for enthusiasts who have been curious about Escalation to get it for a limited low price.

Among the improvements to v2.1 include options for supply lines, a quick-match multiplayer option, rebalanced maps for multiplayer and new maps for single player.

Last week, Stardock merged the base game with the expansion pack into a single title, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation and provided all owners of the base game a free copy of Escalation.

"The growing single-player modding community and the extensive multiplayer options convinced us that we needed to combine the Ashes of the Singularity and Escalation communities together," said Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock. "After all, there can only be one singularity."

For a complete list of the updates in v2.1, please view the changelog here.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation retails on Steam or through Stardock for $39.99. From February 23 - March 2, you can purchase Escalation for 50% off.

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.