Artillery / Guardians of Atlas

This site serves as tribute to Artillery Games, Inc. and the 3D, multiplayer RTS we launched, Guardians of Atlas.

In 2012, myself and a few others observed the fast rate of web browser development and saw the potential for HTML5. We decided that we could build a gaming platform in the browser and we pitched "Steam for the web." We built a 3D multiplayer air hockey demo which used WebGL and WebSockets, and the people we pitched it to were amazed that it wasn't Flash.

After closing a large seed round, we released Powderkeg on Facebook as a multiplayer, realtime Bomberman clone featuring the art of Adam deGrandis. After this, we decided to aim higher and build a new realtime multiplayer strategy game (RTS) -- a combination of the best parts of Dota, League of Legends, WarCraft III, and our beloved StarCraft, which would be playable on our own HTML5-based game engine that could be played on any browser.

We partnered with a gaming celebrity, raised another large round, spent a few years doing extensive playtesting and development, ported the engine and game to Mac and Windows, and eventually launched the game in September, 2016. At the height we employed 21 people, and our first announced playtest drew thousands of players. Despite this, the launch of the game was not successful, and for a multitude of reasons we decided to shut down the studio. I was unable to find an acquirer and I returned the remaining funds to investors.

Thank you to everyone involved that put in a truly herculean amount of effort, and thank you to everyone that supported and believed in us.

– Ian

Example Gameplay

More Videos

• Artillery's HTML5 Browser Gaming Console Platform (2013)
• Grath - Gameplay Overview - Guardians of Atlas (2016)
• Guardians of Atlas - Developer Stream VODs (2016)
• Gameplay clips on Twitch
• Gameplay videos on YouTube

Content

• Artillery home page (www.artillery.com), archived September, 2016
• Atlas home page (guardiansofatlas.com), archived September, 2016
• Atlas discussion forums
• All sounds and voices from the game
• The Artillery Blog (blog.artillery.com)

Discussions

• Guardians of Atlas on TeamLiquid
• /r/GuardiansOfAtlas on Reddit

Articles

• Facebook IPO Could Spawn 1,000 Start-ups (2012)
• Fire Power and Artillery (2012)
• Artillery Raises $2.5M To Make the Browser The Console (2012)
• Artillery aims to make web browsers into game consoles (2012)
• HTML5 Gaming Startup Artillery Lures Starcraft Personality Sean "Day[9]" Plott Into Design Role (2013)
• Artillery Teases Upcoming Game "Atlas," An HTML5-Based "Spiritual Successor To Starcraft" (2013)
• Artillery shows HTML5 browser game platform (2013)
• Gaming startup's HTML5 development platform brings triple-A games to browsers (2013)
• The unlikely fusion of eSports and HTML5 (2013)
• How Atlas could kill the console and change gaming forever (2013)
• A thread on a W3C mailing list that led to the creation of the Pointer Lock API (2014)
• Chinese giant Tencent leads Series A funding in free-to-play developer Artillery (2015)
• Artillery Games ceases development on MOBA/RTS Guardians of Atlas (2016)
• RTS studio Artillery and its debut project Atlas are no more (2016)

FAQ

Is it open-source or still playable?

No, sorry. My biggest regret is not making sure there was a downloadable version of the game before we shutdown. All of Artillery's assets were sold when the company shut down in September, 2016. Years later we considered open-sourcing it and releasing a community version, but the legal issues are logistics are messy.

Why are the logos so boring?

We had awesome logos when we started and cinematic universes weren't yet a thing. But a certain superhero company decided to send us a trademark nastygram three days before launch. They have prior art for "an 'A' with three wings," and they didn't like a sci-fi game starting with "Guardians Of." So we didn't fight it.

What's with the domain?

We had artillery.com and guardiansofatlas.com but no longer own them. I needed a cheap domain that I could own permanently and this is the best I could do.

Why did the game shut down? Why didn't you <insert solution here>?

There's been a lot of speculation about why we shut down. The reality is that we simply didn't have a viable path forward with our remaining resources. Rather than continue struggling, we felt it was more important to ensure our remaining team members could transition to their next opportunities in the best possible position.

© 2016 Artillery Games, Inc. All rights reserved.