One of my favourite games of last year, Stellaris is following in the tried and true footsteps of its Paradox Development Studios forebears and having the scope and depth of its gameplay grown step by step with expansions. Last year’s Leviathans expansion added new plots and some space monsters to its collage of randomised stories and events, but its with Utopia that Paradox are bringing what they call the first major expansion to the game.
One of the big improvements comes in the form of Ascension Perks, which allows your species and empire to evolve and change over time. They’ll gain new traditions and can choose to evolve biologically, psionically or synthetically, drawing upon some of the more common ideas seen in science fiction.
You’ll be able to build your own megastructures including Dyson Spheres and ring worlds, letting you match the accomplishments of the dormant empires, while habitat stations let you grow your populace on space stations, which will be incredibly useful for when you find yourself penned into a small area by other empires with few options for expansion.
There’s also to be updates to the rights and priviledges you can give to those species that your empire may come to dominate. Do you subjugate them or let them become full citizens? This promises to add further depth to this side of the game.
As is always the case, there will also be a general update that adds features and tweaks the game for all Stellaris players, whether you buy the paid content or not. There’s no release date announcement just yet, but I’d expect it to be out in the not too distant future.
Source: press release
Severn2j
Oh cool, the mega structures will be very useful as I’ve kind of stalled in my current game, my empire covers about a quarter of the galaxy, but everything is now colonised, so I’ve nowhere to expand into without starting a war (which Im trying to avoid, being a peaceful, “star trek”-esque bunch)..
Awesome game, keeps getting awesomer :)