The end is in sight. Only a few short weeks until we can get our hands on the upcoming space game extravaganza, Stellaris. As we naturally reach the end of this Development Diary cycle, with a bitter-sweet determination, it’s becoming apparent that there are some serious mysteries to be had late in the game.
Stellaris puts a heavy emphasis on the early exploration and discovery of the budding galaxy around you, but this will eventually turn to bureaucratic dealings as you come to dominate larger and larger swaths of the stars. As you near the later portion of the game, you will encounter strange anomalies, distant messages about odd relics, or transmissions from organic or non, albeit creepy, Extragalactic life-forms.
The entire purpose of this “late game” material is to stave off the boredom that is so often associated with the final years of a large scale strategy game: units, building orders, elections, and diplomacy pushed on you ad nauseam. They dedicated an entire expansion pack for Civilization V to achieve that very goal. It’s never fun maintaining an empire for the last few hours of gameplay. Instead, Stellaris wants to throw some serious galactic goo in your path, trapping your feet to the ground like rats on sticky paper.
Doomdark, game director, explains:
Some technologies are clearly marked as being “risky”, for example Robot Workers. Now, you might not always risk having your victory snatched out of your grasp, but in this case at least, you really are gambling with the fate of the galaxy. Just researching such a technology is safe; it’s the actual use of it that carries the danger. For example, the more sentient Robot Pops there are in the galaxy, the higher the risk is that they will come to deem organic life unfit to exist and rise up in a well-planned revolt. Unless crushed quickly and with overwhelming force, such a Machine Empire will quickly get out of hand and threaten all the remaining empires in the galaxy. Sentient robots will out-research and outproduce everyone. If the revolt is centered in a powerful rival empire, you’ll need to think carefully about when you want to intervene; a savvy player might time it just right and be able to mop up both the robots and the remnants of the rival empire. Leave it too long, however, and the robots will overwhelm you.
Can I just start out as an unshackled AI machine empire?
So, what do you think about the late-game developments of Stellaris? Let us know in the comments below.
