Space 4X strategy game Stellaris launched in 2016, but Paradox can't stop adding to the universe. Last time I checked in, it was school trips to other dimensions. Now, it's Cosmic Storms. Due for release alongside the Stellaris 3.13 Vela update on September 10th, these are a paid "mechanical expansion" (priced at a rather chunky £11, $13 or €13, and available as part of the current season pass) that builds upon the game's existing Space Storms, "providing a deeper experience with strategically meaningful gameplay and beautiful upgraded visuals". Wash that down with new civics, precursor narratives, anomalies, archaeology sites, techs, edicts, a new Ascension perk, and new galactic community resolutions.
]]>From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, I thought: no bother, like. Everyone has different skills. Then, I realised that some other people might be less enlightened than me about the whole ‘having limits’ things, and that there was a lot of money to be made hawking implants. Enter space strategy story-spewer Stellaris, specifically, it’s spost specent spee-LC The Machine Age. It adds many options for your space civs, most of which I’m too rusty with the ever-yawpening sandbox’s myriad nuances to appreciate. But what's this? A new origin that lets you play as techno-religious corpo-cult obsessed with transcending the limits of their meat prisons through cybernetic augmentations? I recognise that from toys! Let’s do some clicking.
]]>The director of Paradox’s grand sci-fi strategy game Stellaris has insisted that the studio’s use of any AI-generated assets will be “ethical”, after revealing that latest expansion The Machine Age features AI voices for characters and used AI-generated art and text during its development.
]]>If you were to buy every Stellaris expansion and content pack separately at full price, it would run you £227.62. To make that perhaps a little less daunting, Paradox have launched an optional monthly subscription service that gives you access to all the expansions. They've done this for several of their other grand strategy games before. It starts at £8.50 for one month then offers discounts for longer terms. While I can see niche uses for the option, I certainly wouldn't want to pay for this regularly. Would you?
]]>Stellaris Nexus hinges off one of the downsides of the Paradox space game’s epic scale - the amount of time it takes to finish a match - to present a bite-sized side dish of 4X nibbles if you only have an hour to play instead of, say, a day. Now that plate of nibbles is offering up, er, a basically identical plate of bite-sized nibbles that you don’t have to pay for right away, as the game has seen its early access release date - planned for tomorrow, no less - replaced by a last-minute week-long open beta.
]]>A game of Paradox's sci-fi strategy Stellaris can take so long that, in all honesty, I've never finished it. I always lose interest at some point and start a new civilisation because I mostly want to try out new weird ideas for a new weird empire, not actually rule that empire and fight its endgame wars. That makes me mighty interested in Stellaris Nexus, an upcoming turn-based spin-off which aims to offer a full multiplayer 4X experience in under an hour.
]]>Paradox have announced the next expansion for their grand spacefaring strategy game Stellaris. It's called Galactic Paragons, and it's coming on May 9th. Larger space regimes require more work, so this expansion is for fans of big government, focusing on Stellaris' collection of leaders, expanding the council system, and introducing deeper character progression. It’s also adding a new Origin delving into the leader who founded your galactic empire, which you can see teased in the very short, very non-descript trailer below.
]]>“Imagine someone saying ‘We need you to make a trailer for our movie, but we've only got half of the sets and props ready…” says Tim Bevan de Lange, Creative Director at Realtime Nordic, a studio that makes, specifically, video game trailers. “...and we haven’t actually shot anything, so you’ll need to do that yourself. Some of the actors won't come out of their trailers. One of them will but if you shoot him from the front you realise he's got no eyes, but don't show the audience that. It's not intentional, he's getting them fixed. Also can you film it twice, for different streaming platforms? Make a really good version for Netflix and a slightly worse looking one for Quibi.”
Every so often a game trailer comes along that makes me think, hang on, that was bloody brilliant! I bet some people made that! Most recently it was Creative Assembly’s Immortal Empires trailer. Well, I’ve been digging around and I’m happy to report that yes, although I’m the first one to just see a trailer as an algorithm trying to snatch my coin purse away like a manure-encrusted Victorian ne’er-do-well, game trailers are made by humans. They're often humans who do it as as specific job, either in-house at a developer or as an outside agency like Realtime Nordic. Enlightened and enthralled, I asked some of them about what went into the strange space that is making the trailers for your favourite games.
]]>Earlier this month, we asked you to vote for your favourite strategy games of all time to celebrate the launch (and glorious return) of several strategy classics this month, including Relic's WW2 RTS Company Of Heroes 3, Blue Byte's The Settlers: New Allies and Cyanide's fantasy Warhamball Blood Bowl 3. And cor, I've never seen such love for individual expansions and total conversion mods among mainline RTS games and 4Xs. As with all strategy games, however, there can only be one victor - and you can find out what that single strategy game to rule them all is right here. Here are your 50 favourite strategy games of all time, as voted for by you, the RPS readership.
]]>Paradox’s grand spacefaring strategy Stellaris is getting its fifth story pack First Contact on March 14th, following on from the previously released Leviathans, Synthetic Dawn, Distant Stars, and Ancient Relics. Story packs are mid-sized expansions that flesh out Stellaris’s universe and this time First Contact is focusing on pre-FTL civilisations, taking a step back from the stars. The expansion was officially revealed back in January after a series of SteamDB leaks outed the project.
]]>I've never actually finished a game of Stellaris. I doubt I'm the only ardent fan of the game that hasn't done so. The best thing about it, as is so often the case with 4X and grand strategy games, is the very beginning. That opening half-hour of limitless potential and giddy curiosity is utterly spellbinding. I don't know if any strategy game does it better.
]]>Sci-fi grand strategy Stellaris will take a step back from the stars and concentrate on pre-FTL civilisations with its upcoming First Contact story pack DLC. Paradox announced the DLC today after details, screenshots and a trailer leaked ahead of the reveal through SteamDB. YouTuber Aspec also uploaded a video detailing the leak and revealing the DLC’s trailer, which has since been made private. You can watch the official trailer below.
]]>Being interested in both sci-fi and strategy games, I’ve always wanted to reshape the galaxy. The free 3.6 Orion update for Paradox’s spacey grand strategy Stellaris is live now, and it's done that, but in a way I hadn’t quite imagined. Among the changes with this update are six new galaxy shapes to mix up the pattern of your interstellar empires a bit. Orion also rebalances fleet combat, bringing in elements of the open beta that began back in October. Paradox have chucked in a few reworks of bits and pieces from Stellaris’ numerous expansions too, including changes to the Utopia DLC’s Ascension path. You can see more about that by watching the video below.
]]>Galactic strategiser Stellaris is inviting players to muck about with adjustments to the game’s combat this month in an open beta, starting today. The beta is running from now until the end of October to trial planned changes and rummage up some feedback for Stellaris’ next update, 3.6 Orion. Don’t worry if you just fancy playing regular Stellaris; this is an opt-in thing. You can find out more by watching the video below.
]]>Sci-fi strategy epic Stellaris sees the launch of its paid Toxoid species pack today, but there’s a substantial free update coming in the form of the 3.5 Fornax patch too. Paradox have added a new difficulty setting aimed at easing in new players aboard Stellaris’ long-running interstellar skiff, along with some new adjustments they’re hoping will challenge more experienced players. The update also rebalances relics, improves UI and AI, and brings back Culture Workers.
]]>Galactic alliances aren’t built in a day, a month or even a year, to warp a comfortingly familiar phrase from 90s telly. Interplanetary 4X Stellaris has been evolving for more than six years now, having first released on May 9th 2016. Unusually, I remember exactly when I bought the game, because it was in the days just before my partner and I welcomed our first child. Being a ginormous sci-fi nerd, I enthusiastically downloaded it thinking I’d have all the space-time in the universe to invest in building my own interstellar superpower.
I did dip my toes in back then, and have many, many times since, but rather naively didn’t foresee the inevitable. The structure of my life altered dramatically with the arrival of our baby. It didn’t stop there either, and still hasn’t, taking on some unfamiliar but just about recognisable form every few months. I suspect the developers of Stellaris had a similar feeling following the game’s release into the wider universe, like Kubrick’s giant cosmic infant at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I know I’ve felt like my furniture’s been rearranged whenever I’ve started a new game of Stellaris with a different civilisation over the intervening years.
]]>Stellaris's Overlord expansion is out now, jamming the vast scifi grand strategy game even fuller with megastructures, story events and - as is Paradox's wont - more vassals. Overlord aims to offer more control over your empires, both to let you shape them in more specific ways and also to generate more anecdotes when it all goes wrong.
As always, the expansion also releasing alongside a new free patch with balance fixes and bux fixes for all.
]]>Google's Ngram Viewer suggests references to "vassals" have been in steady decline for almost two hundreds years, yet Google Trends suggests a doubling or even tripling of interest over the past twenty. The culprit can be found among the "related topics" list at the bottom, which includes Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Universalis 4.
The relentless PR campaign in favour of feudal obligation continues in the next Stellaris expansion, Overlord, which will add new "vassalization mechanics" when it launches on May 12th.
]]>Scifi grand strategy Stellaris is getting a new expansion. Called Overlord, it'll expand the role of vassals, add new megastructures, and expand the diplomatic relationships between you and the empires you subjugate while moving to control the galaxy.
]]>Scifi grand strategy Stellaris's free 3.1 update, titled "Lem", is out now. This is the first update created by "The Custodians", a new team formed within developers PDS Green focused on free, quarterly updates which tweak game balance, add new content to old DLC and fix bugs.
The "Lem" update does all three, changing how tradition trees work, adding new features to old species packs such as 2016's Planetoids, and rebalancing some Civics and Origins.
]]>What's galactic drama without an evil empire to rally against or a mighty hero to save us all? A bit of a damp squib. The latest Stellaris expansion, Nemesis, today spices up the end-game by offering extra powers for domination or liberation. It's got big Star Trek baddie vibes, enough that it even adds new ship designs which look like Star Destroyers. And as ever, the expansion is accompanied by a patch adding and changing loads in the 4X strategy game.
]]>Stellaris: Nemesis was announced in early February with a fancy CG trailer, and now there's a second fancy CG trailer and a release date. Nemesis, which adds various new ways to be a miserable space bastard to Paradox's scifi grand strategy game, will launch on April 15th.
]]>Stellaris is one of the best strategy games around on PC, but Paradox's grand 4X space epic can be a daunting prospect if you're new to the genre. Happily, the latest Humble Bundle makes it incredibly easy to give it a go, as you can now pick up the base game for as little as 70p / $1. Indeed, the entire bundle is themed around the game, and those looking to truly immerse themselves in this galactic space opera can also get seven DLC packs for just £10 / $15. A true bargain if ever I saw one.
]]>Stellaris, the scifi 4X stratey game, is getting a new major expansion. Stellaris Nemesis will add espionage tools that allow you to prevent endgame crises, and new "Menace" powers that let you "become the crisis". This involves new spaceships which are able to eat planets.
]]>You. Hey you. Come here. Closer. You look like someone interested in unorthodox game updates? What are you looking for? Stellaris? Right, right. Shhh. Keep walking. You don’t know me. See that guy up there, with the three arms and glowing eyes? Tell him you’re here for Stellaris mods. He’ll hook you up with some prime grand strategy space gear. We’re talking total conversions, quality of life updates... we’ve even got some aggressive new AI. Go on, you’ll like it...
And that’s how I was introduced to the Stellaris mod scene.
]]>Strategy games is an enormous genre in PC gaming, with real-time, turn-based, 4X and tactics games all flying the same flag to stake their claim as the one true best strategy game. Our list of the best strategy games on PC covers the lot of them. We like to take a broad view here at RPS, and every game listed below is something we firmly believe that you could love and play today. You'll find 30-year-old classics nestled right up against recent favourites here, so whether you're to the genre or want to dig deep for some hidden gems, we've got you covered. Here are our 50 best strategy games for 2023.
]]>What's the point of forging an eternal space empire if you're not around to see it? Why let a pesky thing like mortality ruin your timeless dominion over the cosmos? Such things don't concern Stellaris's newest band of ramblin' shamblin' undead aliens, The Necroids, descending upon the galaxy in today's new Species Pack. 'Tis the season for an undead apocalypse, after all.
]]>Paradox Interactive, the makers of Crusader Kings and Stellaris, have announced the "impending completion" of a collective bargaining agreement with the labour unions for its employees in Sweden. By the end of this month, Paradox employees should have a formal way of influencing their pay, benefits and responsibilities, and be generally better protected by the unions they're part of. If you're a little confused on what all this "collective agreement" business means though, bear with me while I have a go at explaining it.
]]>Four years ago, Paradox launched Stellaris, a sci-fi grand strategy game which had promise but needed a bit of work to find itself. Since then, Paradox have released so many updates overhauling and replacing bits and pieces that I'm entirely lost on how it works when I come back to it. They've certainly put in work. To celebrate the fourth birthday (which was actually on Saturday), Paradox today launched yet another patch, started a free trial week, and put the game on sale too.
]]>Nate: The galaxy has been remade once again. Space opera strategy extravaganza Stellaris has a new DLC out, called Federations, and a massive free patch that overhauls a greater-than-usual number of the game's systems. Both the DLC and the patch focus hard on diplomacy, and so I thought it'd be a good idea to rope in a fellow space obsessive and see if, working together, we could befriend our way to dominion over the galaxy. (At this point, I'd like you to imagine regular contributor Nic Reuben smashing through the wall on a knackered space motorbike, before taking an open-necked chug on a can of space off-brand energy drink and throwing the can into a neutron star).
]]>It's a great week to make new spacefriends, thanks to the launch of the new Federations expansion for Stellaris. As the name suggests, Federations expands the options for galactic friendship in Paradox's sci-fi 4X strategy game. Now you can join a Galactic Union, Trade League, Research Cooperative, Martial Alliance, or Hegemony, different types of federation with different goals and perks. And get into new sorts of trouble.
]]>Video games are great at transporting us to different worlds, but none capture that feeling quite so perfectly as intergalactic space games - and 2023 looks set to be one of the biggest years for space games yet, with the launch of Starfield, Homeworld 3 and more all on the horizon. But what games have gone before them and staked their claim already on the dusty planet surface known as 'Best Space Games'? We reveal all below, with our carefully curated list of all the best space games you can play on PC right now. Whether you're a budding space cruiser captain, a wannabe space conqueror or an intrepid space-faring explorer, there's a space game for you.
]]>Paradox have announced a launch date of March 17th for the next Stellaris expansions, Federations. As the name suggests, it focuses on expanding options for spacefriends in the 4X strategy game, including new types of federation and a sort of galactic United Nations. It'll bring new origins for civilisations too, including some novel ones like starting on a fragment of a Ring World or on a doomed planet that will explore in 64 years. And as is the Paradox way, it'll be accompanied by a free update overhauling parts of the game for all players.
]]>Here we stand in the dark neo-year of 2020. The spam bots have risen to prominence, the governments of the world are bickering over follower counts, and history class has been renamed "meme studies". Somewhere, in a dusty room in the RPS treehouse, a rogue human is compiling a list article for a crumbling PC games website. It is a warning to all those who read it. A prophecy of the terrible things to come. Wars, invasions, disease, heat death. Videogames, it turns out, have predicted all this and more. Here we replicate this cautionary pre-chronicle, your guide to the harrowing times ahead. Here are the 11 worst years in our future history, according to games.
]]>Right now, there’s a room in Buffalo Grove, Illinois that's as quiet as a grave. The power is off, the robotic limbs are becalmed, and the once thumping presses are depressed. The Steam Controller assembly room is assembling no more, and with the recent Steam sale clearing out all the stock, the grand experiment is over.
It’s the final part of Valve’s great Steam Machines undertaking to be shut down. They’d hoped to convince you to have a PC in the living room, or a small box for you to stream your library from your main PC. The Steam Machines never took off, the Steam Link box was discontinued a year ago, and now the Steam Controller will no longer be made. Gone, but not forgotten.
]]>Stellaris’s newest alieopals, the Lithoids, have arrived, crunching their way through space in extremely cool crystalline ships. The lore claims that this new rock-based species lives for ages and can hang out on even the harshest of planets, but their blingy transport suggests a different kind of je ne sais quoi if you ask me. You can see them in the trailer below.
]]>One of my favourite tropes in Science Fiction is aliens whose cultures are built around some hangover from the time before they made it to the stars. Take the Kelpiens from Star Trek: Discovery, whose existence is dominated by the inbuilt anxiety that comes from having once been prey species. Or Iain M Banks’s Idirans, the “top monster on a whole planetful of monsters'”, who lived in peaceful isolation until an alien invasion nearly wiped them out, after which they became fixated on brutal galactic expansion.
There are millions of weird things that can happen in space, and it’s fascinating to speculate about what sort of long shadows these formative events might leave on the development of a spacefaring culture. But why speculate, when you can play it out yourself? That’s the promise of Stellaris: Federations, the synth-heavy 4X’s upcoming expansion, which will include no less than eighteen origin stories for its customisable cast of mushroom-folk, misery insects and triocular platypuses. And yes, one of them involves your homeworld blowing up almost immediately.
]]>The next Stellaris expansion will be Federations, Paradox announced today, focusing on making the game spacefriends groups more complex and interesting. Federations will come in several flavours, for starters, like a trade league or research cooperative. They'll also be able to level up to unlock new type-specific perks. Spacepolitics will expand with the option for a galactic senate too. Finally, after three years of focusing on the mystery and wonder side of sci-fi, Stellaris will capture the intrigue of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
]]>Despite being a spreadsheet-filled management sim from the most PC developers out there, Stellaris longs to leave its desktop orbit. But while the space sim's transition to console has been relatively smooth, it's having a tougher time entering the mobile space. Stellaris: Galaxy Command, a mobile spin-off by an external studio, launched into beta on Tuesday but Paradox pulled it from sale only five hours later after players discovered stolen Halo artwork lurking in the game's menus.
]]>This week: Rude swears! Writing about more interesting games than the ones you boring people keep buying! And battle advice to people who've been dead 1,800 years! It's some Steam Charts.
]]>Part of any mission to seek out new life and new civilisations is to boldy go where someone snuffed it long before then rummage in their pockets and bones. Stellaris has expanded that aspect of 4X space adventures with Ancient Relics, a new 'Story Pack' add-on released yesterday. It whacks in new dead civilisations for us to discover and new ways to investigate them, with archaeological digs leading to powerful artifacts and strange relics. What could go wrong? This paid DLC is, as ever, accompanied by a free patch overhauling parts of the game, fixing bugs, and tweaking balance.
]]>The far future will rummage in the distant past in the next Stellaris, named Ancient Relics, as spacemen develop a new fondness for archaeology and go wild digging up ancient cities and ships from long-dead civilisations. Sure, that sounds like it'll go fine. We'll uncover wee stories poking into two long-dead precursors--a plantoid hivemind and some superpsionics--as we conduct multi-stage digs and uncover old pots and bangles and supertech to fuel our growth. Yup, that's a nice flavour I'll be glad to see more of in Stellaris. It can't go much worse than some of the artefacts I've dug up before.
]]>Stellaris, the sprawling and much-expanded 4X space strategy game by Paradox, is free to try out from now until Sunday, May 12th. If you like it, you can snap it up for cheap. The game has now been out for three years, and while it may have been considered a little bare-bones at launch, a trio of major expansions (and some smaller DLC) plus some huge free patches have turned it into a 4X favourite. As well as managing a sprawling space empire, it has a bit of personality to it, with major and minor story arcs cropping up in the vein of Crusader Kings. See the anniversary trailer below.
]]>Hey, remember the good old days? Those giddy times I like to think of as last week? When the Charts felt fresh and new, filled with potential, as if any interesting game could take a top spot? Well, forget all that because it's all gone to shit again.
]]>I don't what is this? How many? Are we sure we're in the right charts? This is definitely the Steam Charts, where the mad-brained broken people just buy the same four games over and over and over? Because something is up. People have only bought the same three games over and over!
]]>Paradox's sprawling 4X space strategy game Stellaris expands again today. Between a new paid expansion - MegaCorp - and a free update code-named Le Guin, it's good times for those looking to boldly expand into new markets and buy out new civilisations. The MegaCorp expansion allows players to run a corporate empire, establishing branch offices on any world open to trade and growing fat and powerful off the success of others. The free update adds a lot, including crime, internal and galactic markets and a new empire cohesion system. The devs break it all down in the video below.
]]>We've all dreamed of escaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism* but space is very much not that place in Stellaris, and will be even less so with after the launch of its 'Megacorp' expansion. Paradox today announced Megacorp will hit Stellaris on December 6th, and as ever it'll be accompanied by a free update with changes just as important as any feature the paid expansion adds. The update will overhaul the spacefaring 4X strategy game's weak economic side for all players, then Megacorp will focus on new toys to better exploit spacecapitalism.
]]>We've just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It's a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you'll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.
2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets.
]]>Travel beyond the limits of known space to a mysterious cut-off cluster in the new Stellaris DLC, the 'Distant Stars Story Pack', which could open up powerful shortcuts across space but miiight have been closed off for a good reason. But obviously you're going to stick your spaceoar in and see what's up. What are you, spacechicken? Distant Stars also includes new anomalies to investigate and new Leviathans to meet.
As is often the way with Paradox strategy game expansions, it's accompanied by a free update which reworks parts of the base game. Expect new binary and trinary star systems, anomaly studies no longer having a chance to fail, and other tweakies.
]]>One of the best things about Paradox's increasingly feature-studded and DLC-expanded 4X strategy sandbox Stellaris is its focus on storytelling. In the vein of Crusader Kings 2, you'll find yourself frequently confronted with decisions to make as the ever-living Emperor Of Space, which can often spiral into lengthy story arcs with sometimes spectacular end results. The next expansion for the game, Distant Stars, will be adding a good chunk more interactive prose to flesh out exploring the far fringes of the galaxy, adding a multitude of story arcs short and long to the mix.
]]>I really want to get into Stellaris. I find myself buying every major expansion close to its release, convincing myself that late-game megastructures, role-playing as a robot or blowing up planets will be the hook that reels me in. Every time, I merrily launch into a fresh game - only to find my fun dissolving into work once I'm a few hours in.
"But that's the best bit!", you say. "Roaming the galaxy and discovering strange worlds with stranger stories is the most alluring step towards a fantastic sci-fi experience!". Paradox are making that step even easier to take with update 2.1 by removing failure risk from anomaly research, and rejigging hyperlanes so space-nasties don't get placed on chokepoints. I'm glad to see changes are still arriving that shake up the early game - perhaps they'll be enough for me to stick with a galaxy long enough to actually build a goddamn Dyson Sphere.
]]>Civilization VI: Rise and Fall wants to solve a problem. That problem is perpetual growth, and it plagues many 4X games. Whether your aim is world conquest or cultural hegemony, victory in Civilization and many of its cohorts depends on domination. However peacefully you try to play, you're often straight-jacketed into a utilitarian-psychotic view where all resources and people are just raw material to be assimilated, Borg-like, until the whole map is monochrome.
But as the early excitement of exploration and expansion ebbs to late game stagnation, the fun runs out. Historically, stagnating empires tend to fragment and collapse. But in Civilization VI, like many games, you're the star of the show – and there's nowhere to go but up.
]]>I've made a lot of galaxies and star empires this last week, and I've thrown most of them in the bin. The Stellaris 2.0 update and the accompanying Apocalypse DLC have blown this 4X game to bits, along with my fleets as I've tried to wrap my head around the almost-new game built out of its chunks. Though I've racked up hundreds of hours of galactic conquest over the last couple of years, I've had to start fresh and figure out how to run a stellar empire all over again.
The xenophobic Imperium of Earth fell behind the rest of the galaxy and quickly found itself boxed in, the possessive but friendly Automata Matrix got squished in a war between Federations, and the slavers of the Saarlan Ravagers just weren't fun to play because they’re dicks. I should be a bit frustrated, but instead I'm hooked again. The DLC isn't essential, but the free update completely revitalises Stellaris, and it takes big risks to do it.
]]>Paradox strategy games tend to be restrained, but seems the publisher-developer has tired of being a wallflower and now fully intends to do big, noisy explosions with the best of 'em.
Apocalypse, out today, is a new expansion for their sci-fi 4X Stellaris, and is all about changing the physical rather than merely socio-political landscape of the galaxy. Which is to say, killing planets, enslaving their entire populations or otherwise removing whole worlds from the field of play.
]]>Though the galaxy of Stellaris is filled with traces of strange and terrible events, we don't really leave our own mark in extravagant ways. That will change a little with the launch of the sci-fi 4X strategy game's planet-destroying Apocalypse expansion, which Paradox today announced they will release on February 22nd. T-minus 28 days later until I demolish your planets to build a hyperspace bypass, or to mine it for resources, or simply because it was spoiling my view. Or maybe I'll trap you in a bubble to study you. Or robotise you. Options. Anyway. 28 days. Make your peace. Later taters.
]]>What's your favourite paradox? My current one is 'how can the many awesome games in The Humble Paradox Bundle 2018 cost so little money?'. Wait, that's not a paradox - it's just a really good deal. Looks like I need to finish this news post then head back to paradox school.
Fortunately I won't need to enrol to enjoy the games on offer here. This bundle has 8 in total, with highlights including Obsidian's RPG Pillars of Eternity and the surprisingly funny wizard brawler Magicka 2. This is Paradox though, so best of all is the selection of sprawling strategy games. Let's dive in!
]]>Too many worlds. That's the problem with space. You develop interstellar flight and hope to find a big emptiness that you can coast around in until all of the stars fade to black, but there's all this stuff scattered about. Planets and asteroid belts and big alien jellysquids.
Stellaris's upcoming expansion, Apocalypse, will let you clear out some of the clutter. It brings planet-destroying weapons into the game, along with new Titan capital ships, massive orbital installations and marauding space nomads, who can be recruited to your cause, but can also trigger a new late-game crisis. There's some non-violent stuff as well for the gentler souls among you.
]]>Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games. But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol' breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.
Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.
]]>I'll be honest - I'm not totally sure what Paradox are going for with their Humanoid Species Pack for Stellaris, which is released today. The motivation seems to be that humanoids are 'the most-played phenotype' in the 4X sci-fi game, and as such they've stuck in a whole bunch of human-like species, include cyclopes, orcish types, demonic sorts and bionic-eyed dwarves. I guess this makes playing as something other than straight-up boring humans a little more appealing to straight-up boring humans who always choose to play as straight-up boring humans.
However, what's confusing me more is references to humanoids finally getting their own unique ship class, 'inspired by the classics of Western science fiction.' Is... is that a very careful way of trying to be a bit more Star Warsy or Battlestarry without making any lawyers cross?
]]>Jon Shafer, the lead designer of Firaxis's Civilization V and his own strategy game At the Gates, is gone from strategy specialists Paradox only six months after joining. Paradox say neither that he ditched the company nor that they fired him, rather that they have all "decided to part ways due to creative differences." How enigmatic! We didn't even know what he was working on.
]]>Paradox is packing everyone onto the space-highway, and reworking how FTL travel works in their galactic 4X game, Stellaris. While you can currently choose either Warp, Hyperdrive or Wormholes as your space empire's means of travel, Paradox have decided that having asymmetrical movement methods - while "an interesting idea on paper" - creates too many problems for features they'd like to implement. Once the Cherryh update hits, every player will start with Hyperdrive technology only. That means every player will (with a few exceptions) be limited to travelling via pre-determined space lanes, which constitutes a major change to the game's core systems. One of those X's does stand for (shudder) Xploration, after all.
]]>With Halloween fast approaching, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about typical spooky things: ghouls and ghosts, vampires and werewolves, marrying off my daughter to an appropriate suitor and the best trade strategy to dominate the Aegean. The Steam Halloween Sale is in full swing until November 1, and thanks to Paradox Interactive, it’s full of grand strategy games.
]]>Hi! I’m an incredibly charismatic space otter, and I love you! Not just you! I love everyone, be they otter analogues, bird people, or particularly advanced fungal infections! I even love murderous robots, which I’m aware is not a great idea because they’re murderous robots!
At least that’s what Stellaris’ Scyldari would say, if they could do anything apart from bat their ears adorably on the game’s menu screens. Paradox’s Stellaris is freeform grand strategy, in the mould of the developer’s other games Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings, and as such is much more about numbers and menus than cut-scenes or narrative arcs.
]]>One of my favourite genres of internet video is “Map of the world being rapidly warped by the rising and falling of civilisations as loud and menacing classical music plays in the background”. I like this one and this one and – ooooo - this one. So when confronted with a video suggestion of the same thing being done in interstellar strategy game Stellaris [official site], my heart was filled with a grubby, map-loving glee. Here you can see Volodymyr Valkiv’s game in which a scary red faction called “Chaos” slowly envelops the galaxy over 200 years. But with the magic of YouTube, it only takes 5 minutes. Come see.
]]>A funny old week in the charts, which is to say, H1Z1 and The Witcher 3 have been shoved out by the hatrick of appearances from Stellaris. Also it's worth noting that Dishonored: Death Of The Outsider has disappeared after just one week, which seems a bit of a shame.
Oh, and as correctly predicted last week, absolutely no sign of XCOM 2 making nearly as much money now it's back to £34.99 for both the base game and the War of the Chosen expansion. Shocking!
]]>Whether you want to assimilate organic life, purge it from the galaxy, or coddle it like helpless spacebabies, Stellaris [official site] has your robotic fantasies covered in its Synthetic Dawn add-on. Launched today, it lets players create their own robotic empire from the start (as opposed to transcending their flesh in the late game) with their own civics, buildings, events, perks, and so on. It'll also bring eccentric Fallen machine empires, the risk of machine uprisings creating their own empires, and more.
In the usual Paradox way, the DLC launch is accompanied by a huge patch bringing changes and new bits to all players of the space strategy game.
]]>Paradox Interactive have, unfortunately, shed their fleshy shells and embraced the ways of the machine, and they're now slyly spreading pro-robot propaganda through the latest DLC story pack for Stellaris [official site], Synthetic Dawn. It'll let you make all manner of machine societies when the singularity begins on September 21.
]]>It's robo a go-go with the next Stellaris [official site] DLC, Paradox announced today. Due later this year, the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack DLC will let players start as mechanical men, with new events, ships, traits, story beats, and so on. The spacefaring strategy game already lets players transcend their flesh and become synthetics deep down a tech tree but ick, who wants to have ever been meat at all? Shameful.
As is customary, a big free update will launch alongside this paid expansion. Update 1.8, nicknamed 'Čapek' after the Czech writer who popularised the word 'robot', brings changes to habitability, hive minds, and more.
]]>Paradox have started handing out games as compensation to those affected by their recent surprise regional price hikes. Prices went up by only a few percent for some people but almost doubled for others. Paradox have reverted the prices now. They had thought they might be able to give partial refunds but that's proved unworkable.
Instead, anyone who bought Paradox products at the higher prices -- which were between May 17th and July 6th -- is eligible to claim a game from a list including Stellaris and Crusader Kings II, or alternatively two bits of select DLC.
]]>Big, slow, sweeping strategy games expose their rules in a way no other game does. Call of Duty doesn’t have floating numbers above enemy heads, telling you their movement speed, for example. But in most 4X and grand strategy games, there is no attempt to hide exactly how everything works: the stats, their interactions, are all laid out and plain to see. Yet these games are utterly dependent on their ability to evoke a sense of place, scale, and history – they have to be much more than just a fancy chessboard, they have to feel alive, or they’re just not much fun. How can these games survive and thrive under such conflicting pressures? I spoke to three of the world’s top strategy game designers, from Firaxis, Paradox and Amplitude, to find out.
]]>The Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don’t worry. We’ve rounded up some recommendations - both general tips and some newly added staff choices.
Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You're welcome.
]]>Paradox Interactive, the gang behind games including Crusader Kings and Hearts of Iron, have pledged to undo their recent increases to regional prices across much of the world. While many of the price rises were minor, others were huge. For example, the price of Stellaris in Russia went from 699₽ to 1199₽. Paradox had said the increases were "to make our prices match the purchasing power of those areas" but have since decided they communicated this poorly, so they will roll the prices back.
]]>'Terrible' only in the sense of their gaming capability. Honestly, I'm sure your laptop is lovely to look at and it was definitely a extremely sensible idea to spend all that money on it instead of buying a holiday or helping to save the pandas. Truth is, though, that playing recently-released games on the vast majority of laptops is about as effective as starting an online petition to uncancel your favourite television show.
A little discretion goes a long way, however. Sure, you may be denied the glossiest of exploding viscera, but it is entirely possible to keep up with the Joneses even on a Terrible Laptop that has no dedicated graphics card. Here are but twelve contemporary games - either recently released or still-evolving going concerns - that will indeed run on your glammed-up toaster. Additional suggestions below are entirely welcome.
]]>War has returned to the galaxy with a hasty hotfix for Stellaris [official site], clearing up some big problems created by the recent update 1.6 (nicknamed 'Adams'). Here's the biggest one: AI factions were not declaring war. That's a bold utopian vision of our spacefuture but a bit wonky for a game full of spacewar. That's a mighty embarrassing bug, both for developers Paradox and for me. I've been feeling chuffed about my diplomatic skills in my current game but, er, nope, my spacepeacocks flourished because my rivals were entirely unable to spacepunch me in my beautiful spaceface.
]]>Happy birthday, Stellaris [official site]! To celebrate the first birthday of their space strategy game, Paradox have released a new update and are giving all spaceguests party favours in the form of free cosmetic DLC. The pack of species portraits offered as a pre-order bonus are now free to all players, and Paradox have thrown in some colourful new ones too - like that ↑ spacepeacock. As for Update 1.6, nicknamed 'Adams' after the interactive fiction writer, that's smaller than many updates but still brings some good changes. The game has come a fair way over the past year.
]]>Grand strategy game Stellaris [official site] throws up some pretty wild space stories – just read Brendan's account of being a galactic robot dad or his tale of a peaceful race of multicultural turtles and you'll see what I mean. It was one of the best games of last year and the recent expansion, Utopia, has taken it up another level.
The base game will set you back £40 on Steam but this month you can pick it up for just $12 through Humble Monthly, the Humble's subscription service for a package of mystery games that releases (you guessed it!) once a month. That's a sweet deal – and don't worry, you can cancel after the first bundle.
]]>Last time in this diary on grand space strategy Stellaris, my species of sugary, democratic Tortals invited everyone to their space nation regardless of race, creed or culture. It was a burgeoning multicultural utopia called the Open Gates. Then a terrifying horde of transdimensional beings arrived and started to eat everyone like a rack of saucy ribs, which is against the rules.
The Tortals and their compatriots have now escaped in a flotilla of refugee ships to the Shell, a corner of space where they hope to be safe. They are far from the Unbidden, the aforementioned interdimensional gatecrashers, but now they have new neighbours in the form of of two very large despotic empires. And, as any cultured dictator knows, shells usually contain something tasty and soft inside.
]]>"It will all take care of itself" – infamous Tortal saying
Welcome to the Open Gates of Tortal. All are welcome here. Are you a slithering conformist lizard looking for employment? Come and work in our power plants. Maybe you’re a consumerist mollusc seeking some retail therapy? Then visit our pleasure districts. Are you a titanic ocean beast of uncertain origin? Join our defensive military academy, you’ll fit right in. The Open Gates are for everyone. Wait, who are you? Oh, an aggressive inter-dimensional collective of carnivorous energy? GET OUT. SPACE IS FULL.
]]>He was a boy. She was a girl. Can I make it anymore obvious? He wrote the weekly Steam charts. She read them.
What more can I say?
Other than that these are the ten Steam games with the most accumulated sales over the past week, obv. See ya later, boy.
]]>Utopia is the first major expansion for Stellaris, Paradox Development Studio’s 4X, grand strategy space hydra. It’s a term that normally conjures up images of a perfect society, all green and chill and maybe a little like Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets. That’s nice, I guess, but what if your idea of perfection is building a civilization on the backs of robotic slaves? And what about a monstrous hive of ravenous beasties that won’t rest until all matter in the universe has been consumed? What would its utopia look like? I’ve been experimenting with a galaxy-sized petri dish to find out.
]]>Today's a big day for Stellaris [official site], as developers Paradox have launched its first proper expansion and a big game-changing patch. Headline features for the Utopia expansion include space habitats, dreadful new forms of enslaving and purging species, and 'ascension perks' to customise and shape species towards mechanical, biological, or psionic final forms. Update 1.5 (nicknamed Banks), meanwhile, reworks the government system, adds a civics system to make empires more unique, improves AI, fixes bugs, adds technologies, and changes plenty more. Exciting times in space.
]]>As long-time readers will know, I don't believe there's any possibility of a party unless someone brings a strategy game to the dancefloor. This year, EGX Rezzed is going to be party central. For the first time, Paradox will have a presence at the show, in the form of three playable games (including the just-announced Steel Division: Normandy 44's multiplayer) and two developer sessions. They're both on the Friday, with Cities: Skylines up first at 12PM and Stellaris following at 2PM. In the former, you'll hear Colossal Order's CEO on continuous development post-release, and working with a large community, and in the latter Stellaris' game director will talk about the first year post-release, and the major expansion, Utopia.
]]>The first proper expansion for Stellaris [official site] will launch on April 6th, Paradox announced today. Utopia adds shiny futuristic features like buildable Dyson spheres, ring worlds, and habitat stations (very utopian), psionic, biological, and mechanical 'Ascension' paths (also utopian), and a variety of new ways to oppress and enslave other races (very... Omelasian). Well, utopias are always meant to be rhetorical, aren't they? While Utopia is a paid expansion, the big update 'Banks' will launch for free alongside it with a load of handy new features.
]]>Everything was in place for the Romulan invasion of the United Federation of Planets. Warbirds screeched out of the shipyards of Romulus and Remus on a direct course for the closest Federation worlds, those belonging to the chilly Andorians. The real goal, of course, was neighbouring Vulcan. This was a symbolic war.
As my jade vessels bombarded the frozen Andorian homeworld, the Tal Shiar informed me that yet another Federation ship had been successfully sabotaged. When my Reman shock troops’ boots hit the icy ground, I realised that Star Trek: New Horizons, a Stellaris [official site] mod, was my favourite ever Roddenbery-flavoured game.
]]>Having previously launched a few DLCdribs and DLCdrabs into Stellaris [official site], Paradox today announced Utopia, the first "major expansion" for their space strategy game. It will introduce Dyson spheres and ring worlds, let starlords shape their empire's future form such as going cybernetic or reaching a higher plane of existence, and more.
As is customary with Paradox strategy expansions, Utopia will be accompanied by a free update with important new features of its own. Changes in update 1.5, nicknamed 'Banks', will include expanding species rights, reworking ethics, and adding refugees.
]]>"I love you" means different things when said to your cat, your parent, your emperor, someone who's just sat next to you on the night bus, and a pint mug of foaming warm advocaat. What does love mean when it's declared by an unknown entity in the depths of space? Ah. Maybe it's best not to find out. But if you're spacecurious or a spaceromantic at heart and you play Stellaris [official site], you can now get loved-up with a free new story update written by Failbetter co-founder Alexis Kennedy.
]]>I've played a million beginnings and around a thousand endings, or at least that's how it feels. Imagine having seen the first act of Romeo and Juliet a hundred times but never having seen how it ends. That's my experience with all manner of games, from big story-driven RPGs to some of my favourite strategy epics. I've founded so many starter cities that have never birthed a civilization and met so many characters whose fate I don't know. And this isn't a case of starting a game and then abandoning it; these are the games that I play again and again, sinking days and weeks into them, restarting but never finishing.
Diablo III is the latest.
]]>Aside from starting a new tradition of unusually-named Steam Awards, Valve have also pulled out their worn and adored bargain bucket and have begun to fill it with games you’ll enthusiastically buy and probably never play. Yes, it's their Autumn Sale. In the streets, the apocalyptic jockeying for TVs and blenders has started. The moon has turned blood red. And I looked and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Black Friday, and sales followed with him.
]]>Our Adam had a look at the state of Stellaris [official site] after Paradox released the most-recent update and paid add-on for their space strategy game. He called those "an indication that the studio have ideas as to how the universe can become more lively, without making it more cluttered at the same time, and that makes the future of Stellaris very exciting indeed." And what of that future? Paradox have shared some of their plans and hopes for the future, which include fleshing out the mid- and late-game, adding a "space UN", expanding ethics, and making empires more interesting and alive.
]]>Space dragons, wars in heaven, awakening gods, secret enclaves and (most delicious of all) user interface improvements. Stellaris: Leviathans [official site] brings some gargantuan beasts and big features to Paradox's sci-fi strategy game, but is it a small step forward or a great leap into the unknown?
]]>Today's a big day for Stellaris [official site] as Paradox's spacefaring grand strategy game receives both the long-awaited patch codenamed 'Heinlein' and its meatiest add-on yet, the Leviathans Story Pack. But wait! If you're stuck into a game from the last patch, do be aware that update 1.3 will not work with your save file. Paradox do handily have a way to get back that old version, if you desperately want to polish it off before moving on. But if not, coo 'eck let's look at all that's new today.
]]>Paradox's 4x grand strategy game Stellaris [Official Site] is getting another boost to story and mechanics with the upcoming Stellaris: Leviathans Story Pack. Now, instead of just worrying about the everyday issues of diplomacy, combat, and trade, you also have to worry about giant space Kraken destroying your fleets.
]]>Strange and giant space nasties are coming to Stellaris [official site] in the Leviathans paid expansion, which Paradox today announced will launch on October 20th. Players will get to fight a space dragon for its horde, encounter a mysterious sphere, meet something which lives inside a sun, and so on - the usual stuff.
Just as important - perhaps more so? - is the free update hitting the 4X strategy game alongside the expansion. Codenamed Heinlein (after the sci-fi author, as is Paradox's way), it will add or overhaul features from auto-explore to sector governors.
]]>Paradox have announced the first meaty expansion for their sci-fi strategy epic Stellaris [official site]. It goes by the name Leviathans and they're calling it a 'Story Pack', which makes me think this might be where former Failbetter scribe Alexis Kennedy has been sticking his nib. It seems like a smart place to put him if so. Kennedy was the lead writer on Sunless Sea and the trailer for Leviathans looks an awful lot like it's channeling Terror From the Deep. Take a look.
]]>Stellaris [official site], Paradox's sci-fi fusion of 4x design and grand strategy ideals, is a game that generates stories. As your species moves through the galaxy, encountering all manner of alien life, you'll create tiny tales and epic sagas. There are also stories already written, however, in the form of quest chains, and over the weekend we learned that one of the minds behind Fallen London and Sunless Sea will be adding to those space-stories. Alexis Kennedy, co-founder and formerly creative director of Failbetter Games, is now crafting word-shapes for Stellaris.
]]>There are lots of games I see people thoroughly enjoying that interested me very little - mobas, online match-based multiplayer, rural management cuteness - and I'm really pleased they exist and provide such entertainment. But it's not for me. However, there are other games that I have absolutely no intention of ever playing that absolutely fascinate me, and I love to read about the adventures people have within. Below are three of them.
]]>Paradox today released the first bit of paid DLC for Stellaris [official site], adding a Plantoid species type to their space strategy game. It's only a collection of cosmetic doodahs but they are pretty ones - check out the gorgeous new portaits. Aren't those great? I'm not being funny, right, but I am enjoying imagining how they would feel to the touch. Meanwhile, Paradox have also returned from their summer holidays to work on the next major free update, nicknamed 'Heinlein', and they've started teasing features such as a new Federation victory condition.
]]>Plantoids will be the first new lifeforms added to Stellaris [official site] in a 'Species Pack', developers Paradox announced today. As is fairly typical for their grand strategy games, the pack will add unique portraits and models for a variety of plantpeople. It's not a huge deal but hey, if you've been waiting for word on actual expansions then you might like knowing Paradox are at least getting the DLC train rolling.
]]>When I gathered my favourite Stellaris [official site] mods last month, there were just over 2,000 brimming from its Steam Workshop - an impressive number, given the game had only been out for five weeks or so at that point. Three weeks on and almost 500 have since been added to the collection, one of which just missed my roundup cut: the Stellaris Alpha Mod.
Not only does the ambitious modification add over 60 new buildings, 17 new resources and seven new edicts, among a range of other things, creator AlphaAsh has since been actively planning new features, taking suggestions from players and fixing bugs, all of which suggests the Alpha Mod will only get bigger. To infinity... and beyond etc.
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