Planetary Annihilation successor has a bumpy landing on Steam, and the backers aren't happy: 'So bare bones that it's basically an asset show without a game'

Any game with the noble ambition of reviving 90s-style real-time strategy is going to have our attention here at PCG, especially when it comes from the great minds behind Command and Conquer. Industrial Annihilation, a follow-up to Planetary Annihilation and spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, landed on Steam Early Access the other day after accomplishing its Kickstarter funding goals earlier this year, but its first few days on Steam have been a bit faltering.

Industrial Annihilation has recovered from a 'Mostly Negative' rating up to a 'Mixed' one, with player counts peaking around 350 on launch according to SteamCharts (despite the game having nearly 6000 backers). Industrial Annihilation offers an interesting twist on the old-school RTS formula, whereby you build up a vast factory of conveyor belts, supply lines and the like in order to create nuke-like weapons. You then need to defend your factory from enemy armies, while sending out your own mechanised forces to scupper their nuclear ambitions, with the whole thing ending in a big ol' nukefest. 

Early sentiment in the community is that the game feels too threadbare (which could be a case of mismanaged expectations around what 'Early Access' means). "It's so bare bones that it's basically an asset show without a game," said one player on the game's Steam forums. Others have been willing to look past the game's current scarcity and inevitable EA bugginess to see the potential of its 'Factorio meets C&C' concept, while saying that it has a long way to go.

It's worth remembering that Planetary Annihilation, made by the same team under a different studio name, also had a rocky journey before landing on a pretty solid final product. Planetary Annihilation was one of the early Kickstarter superhits back in 2012, raising over $2,000,000. When it finally came out, it… wasn't great, so the studio released the Titans expansion the following year that sought to right the wrongs of the base game, as well as adding a bunch of new content. 

Founding Kickstarter backers were gifted Titans for free, but other owners of the base game—some of whom paid $90, which granted them access to the alpha build—weren't too happy that they had to pay for the upgrade (albeit at a steep discount), feeling that the base game fell so far short of expectations that it should've been a free upgrade for all existing owners.

When all was said and done, Planetary Annihilation: Titans wound up being pretty good, with a 'Very Positive' score on Steam, so here's hoping that the studio has learned from previous experience, and Industrial Annihilation grows into a game that does its RTS lineage proud.