Ashes Of The Singularity II Opens Multiplayer Playtest September 8

Stardock is opening a public multiplayer demo playtest for Ashes of the Singularity II , running September 8 through 14 on Steam .

During the playtest, players will be able to command either the United Earth Forces (UEF) or the Post-Human Coalition (PHC) across a selection of multiplayer maps, battling other commanders head-to-head or teaming up for group matches.

Refining Multiplayer Ahead of Release

The playtest follows Ashes of the Singularity II 's Steam Next Fest demo, after which the development team continued refining the game based on player feedback, with improvements spanning gameplay, balance, performance, and multiplayer specifically.

Stardock VP of Entertainment Adrian Wright said the studio "learned a lot from players" during that earlier demo, framing this playtest as a chance to stress-test recent improvements at a larger scale before the game's eventual release.

Ashes of the Singularity II expands on the original with new factions, units, and strategic options, alongside expanded competitive and cooperative multiplayer built for battles involving massive armies across sprawling battlefields.

A third faction, the mechanical AI Substrate, also appears in the broader game alongside UEF and PHC, though this particular playtest is scoped to the latter two.

Built on a Decade of Large-Scale RTS History

Ashes of the Singularity II is the sequel to Stardock and Oxide Games' original 2016 real-time strategy game, known for pushing massive-unit-count battles across continent-sized maps using a multi-core engine built specifically to handle that scale.

The sequel carries the same ambition forward with expanded base building, a single-player campaign, and both cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes.

Stardock, headquartered in Plymouth, Michigan, has developed and published strategy and simulation games since 1993, starting with the original Galactic Civilizations .

Players can wishlist Ashes of the Singularity II now and join the public multiplayer playtest on Steam from September 8 through 14.

This story was originally published by GameDaily on Sep 5, 2026, where it first appeared in the Games section. Add GameDaily as a Preferred Source by clicking here.