E.L.E: Planetary Annihilation Beta Now Live

Don’t just win, annihilate!

That’s the tagline for Uber Entertainment’s (Super Monday Night Combat) Kickstarted RTS, Planetary Annihilation, and it seems fitting. Players won’t simply go to battle on a planetary scale with thousands of units, they’ll be able to destroy entire worlds.

At least that’s the pitch. How does this promising Total Annihilation-inspired project actually play? Now is a good time to find out. Planetary Annihilation is officially out of alpha (its rather hilarious $90 alpha, that is), and you can get into a beta version of the RTS now for the much more reasonable price of $60. Uber marked the occasion with a new trailer that shows off all the building, gathering, and destroying action:

It’s also worth noting that Planetary Annihilation was one of the first big gaming Kickstarter projects, and it amassed an impressive $2.2 million in contributions back in August 2012. Of all those early Kickstarters, like Double Fine’s Broken Age, Wasteland 2, CLANG, and others, the only game we’ve actually been able to play (outside of alpha) is Shadowrun Returns. That was a quality, if small, strategy game, so Planetary Annihilation is the first sizable Kickstarted game to arrive — even if it is still in beta. Hopefully it will set the bar high and restore some of the luster to the title of “Kickstarted game.”