Stardock announces plans to launch early access to Ashes of the Singularity on October 22nd, saying this will allow the chance to get their RTS game before it's completed at a 20% discount. Here's word on a couple of breakthroughs this game represents:

Ashes of the Singularity aims to deliver a real time strategy game with an unprecedented scale by being the first native 64-bit RTS game, as well as utilizing a new 3D engine (Nitrous) that fully leverages modern multi-core PCs. The game is also the first game to support Microsoft's new DirectX 12 API, which will enable the game to deliver immense world-wide battles and high visual fidelity for each unit.

"Previously, RTS games had to choose between great visuals or lots of units, due to being limited to 32-bit and DirectX 9 based engines," said Brad Wardell, President & CEO of Stardock. "It's one of the reasons that RTS games have kind of hit a wall these past few years. The RTS could be pretty or be epic, but not both. Thanks to the Nitrous engine, we can support tens of thousands of units acting independently as part of a worldwide battle with a distinct visual style."

Set in the distant future, the player starts on a contested planet with a single headquarters. The player must gather resources, build factories, research new technologies, manage a global economy, manufacture massive armies of machine-based constructs, and annihilate all opposition.

"We are very excited to go into early access," said Wardell. "Given how ambitious this game is, we're going to need all the help we can get from our player base to reach our goal of making this the most epic, large-scale real time strategy game ever."

Besides being the first 64-bit RTS and being the first to use DirectX 12, Ashes of the Singularity also includes the first asynchronous multi-core real-time AI.