Total Annihilation

Total Annihilation is a real-time strategy game about a war between the Core and the Arm, two sides fighting for control of a galaxy. What began as a conflict over transferring human consciousness into machines has devastated a million worlds. After more than 4,000 years of war, both sides are crippled, but their remaining armies continue to battle across ravaged planets. Each side seeks the complete elimination of the other.

The Core and the Arm

In the distant future, the Core—a central body of humans and artificial intelligences—rules much of the galaxy. Its technological and economic advances have enabled humanity to colonize most of the Milky Way and live in peace and prosperity. That balance changes with “patterning,” a process that reliably transfers a person’s consciousness into a machine and theoretically grants infinite life.

When the Core mandates patterning for everyone as a public health measure, colonies on the galaxy’s edge rebel. Calling themselves the Arm, they refuse to abandon their natural bodies. The war that follows lasts 4,000 years: the Arm mass-produces clones to pilot its vehicles, while the Core duplicates consciousness-embedded microchips to control its machines.

Command armies

You command armies of 3D units and buildings across large maps with 3D terrain that units can climb over, enter and move around. The game includes aircraft, amphibious tanks, infantry bots known as kbots, vehicles, hovercraft, ships, submarines, production factories, stationary defenses and long-range weapons. A tracking feature lets you follow individual units, entire armies or projectiles across the battlefield.

Battles take place in varied worlds, including grasslands, forests, deserts, archipelagos, open water, lava, metal, ice, crystal, acid and moons. Gravity, tides and wind can affect the performance of some weapons or increase resource production. You can use radar and sonar to detect or jam enemy units, cloak units or protect them with stealth shielding, and revive destroyed units from their wreckage.

The arsenal includes lasers, energy machine guns (EMGs), starburst missiles, plasma shells, lightning pulses, paralyzers and nuclear warheads. More powerful units and weapons unlock as you progress through the campaigns, after specific missions or events.

Campaigns and battles

The single-player campaigns follow the Commanders of the Core and the Arm. Each begins with an effort to defend the protagonist’s home world and turn the tide of the war, then moves through battles on planets and moons using Galactic Gates for faster-than-light travel. The campaigns culminate in a strike on the opposing side’s home world: the Arm’s bucolic Empyrean or the Core’s artificial Jupiter Brain world of Core Prime. Missions include protecting a structure or area, capturing a key enemy unit and eliminating all enemy units.

You can also play single-player skirmishes or multiplayer battles. Multiplayer lets you watch and join battles, and form allied teams that share resources, information and units.

Units and missions

The base game includes more than 150 official units and 25 campaign missions for each side. The included additions are:

• The Core Contingency: 75 new units, including the Krogoth, 50 maps, 25 missions and six world types.
• Battle Tactics: four new units, six maps and 100 missions.
• Version 3.1c patch: six new units, including a resurrection kbot.

The game also has a tracking feature for following units, armies and projectiles across the landscape.