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It’s strange to think that after more than 6 years of enduring popularity, Stellaris was once a gamble for Paradox. Even now, the developer remains best known for its historical grandiose strategy, but this weird sci-fi 4X ended up tidying up in its dense library of games. Since then it has been reconfigured, overhauled, passed through multiple game directors and spawned 16 expansions, species packs and story packs (opens in new tab). No matter what kind of sci-fi is closest to your heart, you’ll probably find it represented in this gigantic cosmic conflict.
Given its impressive breadth, surely it’s running out of room to explore, at least in this iteration? Before speaking to game director Stephen Muray in Paradox’s hometown of Stockholm last month, I was convinced that a sequel, if not already in development, was at least in the concept phase. But according to Muray, Stellaris’ future remains focused on the original game.
“There are so many things we can continue to work with,” he says as I try to figure out what the team’s plans are after the toxins. But even if that’s the case, I wonder if there’s a desire to move to a newer bike and escape the technical debt that has accumulated over the past six years. “I’ve been planning things for ages,” he explains. “So yeah, it’s not something I’m personally too concerned about or interested in right now.”
Despite my assumptions about the sequel, I definitely don’t feel Stellaris is winding down. This became especially evident when Paradox announced the Custodian Initiative last year. A new team was formed to assist in the great work of maintaining this massive game by adjusting the balance, improving old DLC, improving the AI, and working on quality of life improvements. This allows the expansion team to focus on filling the game with more alien species and features.
Up the pace
This is why, just four months after the launch of the latest major expansion, Overlord, Paradox was able to release the Toxoids species pack. It took a year for the Toxoids to go from concept to reality, and it probably would have been longer if the administrators hadn’t kept the game together in the meantime.
“The keepers are one of the best things that ever happened to Stellaris,” says Muray, “so I’m really happy to keep doing that.” And it’s a job that never ends because, he admits, the expansion team is always creating more work for them.
“Sometimes the things we fix undo some things indirectly. They’ve made huge performance improvements to the game and then we improved the AI. Now the AI is much better at playing the game, so their economies are huge in compared to two updates earlier. I joke that they do the performance improvements, and then we stumble.”
Sometimes the things we fix indirectly undo some of the other things.
Paradox normally doesn’t announce packs and expansions until there’s enough to show off. That’s why Toxoids were only revealed a few weeks before launch. So Muray isn’t ready to spread the space beans about what comes next, after the upcoming free Orion update, but he’s also not averse to teasing things he’s interested in, like features from other Paradox games. Overlord, for example, has more than a little Crusader Kings in it, with its focus on vassals and breaking empires. And now that Victoria 3 is finally underway, there’s a whole host of new systems out there that could potentially pinch.
Learning from the past
“I steal good ideas wherever I find them,” Muray says. “I like how” [Victoria 3] has interest groups and things like that. I love how it grows dynamically, and over time they’ve made demands – it all makes sense, it’s great. [Tech lead Lorenzo Berni] will kill me if i say ‘Hey let’s do pop rework number three’. But yes, there may be parts that we will wipe or mimic.”
Every sci-fi trope and story under the sun is within our reach.
Sci-fi itself also still offers many ideas. “That’s one of the most beautiful things about working on Stellaris. Every sci-fi trope and story under the sun is within our reach. So we can take and pick what we want and see how they interact. You can these have hard sci-fi stories mixed with weird space fantasy, and you get some really great stuff sometimes. So yeah, everything, everythingis ours.”
One of the problems with the amount of things Paradox can and has already done with Stellaris is that it can be difficult for new players to know where to start. There is currently $200 worth of DLC available, some very broad, some very specific. It’s good news for me, of course, as it means I get to make stuff like this Stellaris DLC buying guide, but I’m wondering if Paradox has any ideas on how to simplify the process of getting into the game.
“It’s actually something that’s kind of hard,” Muray says. “Our players tend to make this tier rating stuff and a lot of posts on Reddit about ‘What DLC should I get?’ and the answer is always, you know, of course, buy Utopia first.”
Utopia is the one thing most players can agree on: it represents one of the most dramatic and broadest improvements to the game, which is even more impressive because it was the very first expansion. As Muray says, “Utopia was huge and gigantically overscoped.” It is the expansion that introduced megastructures, hive minds, ascension perks and fancy, advanced civics. Even with some of its features eventually making their way into the base game and becoming accessible to everyone, it remains essential.
So it seems that new players will have to keep relying on the community to lead them to the best DLC. That said, the studio is still looking for other ways to make things more accessible for new and existing players alike, from streamlining some of the overly complicated aspects of managing massive empires to improving existing features, such as ship-building. A text-to-speech feature is also on the roll and should appear in the Orion update later this year.
wish list
Some of these additions came up in a Stellaris panel at PDXCon 2022, just after my chat with Muray, where the team discussed things like updating the AI ship designer, which is another change coming with Orion. You can assign roles to ships so that the automaker can customize the ships to your specifications. So for example if you want a more attack oriented ship you can tell the AI and they will select modules best suited for that role. New ship capabilities are also being explored, so components can have different effects based on where the ship is and which leader you have. For example, a ship can do more damage if it is in a mist.
During the panel, the topic of Stellaris 2 resurfaced thanks to a question about what the panel would contain if they could start from scratch with a sequel. Adding gestalt empires to the base game was on the shopping list, along with more gestalt customization and roleplaying potential. A population system that scales better once you get big was also mentioned, as was a more tactical approach to warfare. As a counterpart, Victoria 3 style automated warfare was also proposed. As someone who has spent countless sleepless nights sending small ships into conflicts all over the galaxy, I endorse this motion.
That’s the kind of stuff I’d like to explore more. Discover explore.
As for Muray, he wishes the exploration phase could last longer. “I really like the opening part of Stellaris, where there are so many wonders and you’re exploring. That’s the kind of stuff I’d like to explore more. Explore Explore.”
A man after my own heart. In pretty much every 4X, that early stage, where there’s untapped potential everywhere and you’re still figuring out the shape of your empire, will always be my favorite, especially in Stellaris, where exploration has so much to offer from a narrative perspective. Hopefully we’ll see that expanded and expanded in future DLC, following in the footsteps of Distant Stars and Ancient Relics. And if not in Stellaris 1, then maybe in Stellaris 2. It may not be on the cards yet, but I’m still convinced it will eventually.
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