Total Annihilation

Total Annihilation is a real-time strategy game set in a distant-future war between the Core and the Arm, where players command armies across ravaged planets and moons in a 4,000-year conflict.

What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war that decimated a million worlds. The Core and the Arm exhausted the resources of a galaxy in their struggle for domination, and the remnants of their armies continued to battle on ravaged planets through more than four thousand years of total war.

In the distant future, the galaxy is ruled by the Core, a central body of humans and artificial intelligences. A technological breakthrough called patterning made it possible to transfer human consciousness into machines, but a mandate requiring everyone to undergo it led colonies on the edge of the galaxy to form the Arm in rebellion. The Arm mass-produced clones as pilots, while the Core duplicated consciousness-embedded microchips to pilot its machines.

Total Annihilation is a real-time strategy game created by Cavedog Entertainment under lead designer Chris Taylor. It was released on September 30, 1997, and was the first RTS game to feature 3D units and terrain. Two expansion packs were released: The Core Contingency on April 30, 1998, and Battle Tactics on June 30, 1998.