One of Valve’s annual Steam awards, chosen by players, is called the “Labor Of Love” award. It was designed to reward a developer who has been continuously updating a game for years. Naturally, the award goes to games with large, satisfied communities with many players to vote, and in 2020 the award went to Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The other nominees were Between Us, Terraria, The Witcher 3 and No Man’s Sky.
Valuable games, but I will give a late presentation to a left-field opponent: Planetary Annihilation: Titans, a real-time strategy game that hoped to follow in the footsteps of the Supreme Commander’s big robot and that has been silently buzzing under new developers for the past two years.
It’s easy to work hard on something hugely popular, which – with the exception of Between Us – all the other games mentioned above have always been. (Yes, even No Man’s Sky). Planetary Annihilation was launched 8 years ago, launched to medium criticism and public anger over missing resources, relaunched as Planetary Annihilation: Titans in 2015, and then mostly put aside by its Uber Entertainment developers because it was unprofitable keep working .
(Uber, by the way, later joined Take Two to produce Kerbal Space Program 2, renamed Star Theory studio, declined a purchase and closed in early 2020 after much of its team was stolen. A sad ending to the studio that also did Monday Night Combat.)
This was not the end of the PA, however, because in 2018 a small group of developers of the original game gained permission to part with Uber and take Planetary Annihilation with them. They formed Planetary Annihilation Inc and have since released balance, performance and quality of life updates for the game, while organizing tournaments for their small community. There’s nothing to change your mind if you didn’t like the game before, but it’s lovely for those players who have continued to play.
Of which there are not many. At the time of this writing, Planetary Annihilation: Titans had 531 simultaneous players, a small number that was driven by discounted Christmas sales. Month by month, the game has an average of about 200-300 players, almost as many as it has every month since three months after its launch in 2015.
There are legitimate criticisms to be made of Titans as a game and its developers for what was promised in the original Kickstarter compared to what was released. But, damn, all these years later, I find the commitment of those who kept it admirable. A real labor of love.
Planetary annihilation: Titans costs £ 6 / $ 7.50 / € 6.25 for the next 48 hours, £ 23.79 normally, and free if you bet on the original Kickstarter.