Stardock Entertainment’s Siege of Centauri has finally entered into Early Access on Steam. The visually demanding tower defense game is currently available on the Steam store for $9.99.

So what makes Siege of Centauri visually demanding? Well, because there’s a lot happening on-screen, and so it not only demands attentive focus on what the enemy is doing and where they’re coming from, it also houses the same kind of graphically intense effects that Oxide introduced into the Ashes of the Singularity with the Nitrous Engine.

What you end up with is a game that takes the tried and true tower defense genre and then elevates the experience with the sort of clean-cut graphics that gamers have come to expect from Ashes of the Singularity. It only makes sense given that the game is set within the same universe as the RTS title.

According to the Steam reviews, there are only a handful of missions since the game is in Early Access, but according to the FAQ it will have additional missions implemented along with new maps to play across. Stardock has plans on completing the game by the end of this summer.

Right now only the campaign mode is available but they will be enabling the survival mode soon. You can get a glimpse of what the graphical settings are like, the options menu, and the actual gameplay courtesy of Dad’s Gaming Addiction, who did a 15 minute Let’s Play video of Siege of Centauri.

As you can see, there eight missions in the first phase of the beta. Once you select a mission you’ll have the choice of five different difficulty settings, so there’s something for everyone… even “game journalists”.

There’s an easy point-and-click design to the game, where you select on the map where you want to plant your units and then the units automatically get to work in blowing up the enemy forces.

Even though it’s more tower defense than the typical RTS setup, you’ll still need to monitor your resources and collect enough materials to build new units or upgrade existing base modules.

You can either grab a copy now or wait until the game is complete and graduates from Early Access this summer. For more info you can check out the Steam store page.