Stellaris, the scifi 4X game, gets a new expansion. Stellaris Nemesis will add espionage tools that enable you to prevent end crises, and new “Menace” powers that allow you to “become the crisis”. It involves new spaceships capable of eating planets.
The announcement picture above does not mean much to me, a rookie from Stellaris, but developers Paradox talked more about the additions in a new development diary.
‘Become the crisis’ is a new advantage that players can choose after unlocking two others, and it gives access to ‘crisis surcharge’ and ‘threat objectives’. Committing bad deeds will allow you to Menace and advance you through Crisis Levels, with new ships unlocking as a reward.
On the last level, “An Aetherophasic Engine Frame appears in your capital system,” according to the diary. The framework requires a lot of dark matter to upgrade, and you get dark matter via Star-Eaters, a new kind of starship. They eat stars. If you devour stars, you can upgrade the Aetherophasic Engine and win the game by ending the galaxy.
It sounds to me awfully much like Galactic Civilizations 2. It sounds specifically like my friend Tom Francis’ GalCiv 2 diary, Plan B, which apparently is only on the internet via this Pastebin copy someone made. If you have not read it, you should know that it is very good. It has 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.
There is no release date on the DLC, but it is now on Steam.
How do we feel about Stellaris these days? I’ve heard so many things that it’s broken at release and is now fixed or not fixed, or the best 4X game or the worst I’ve lost.