Stellaris recently gained the massive Federations expansion, and now that's out the door Paradox Interactive and Paradox Development Studio are looking ahead towards a big free update due in May.
Before we get into that, it looks like the popularity of Stellaris has been renewed somewhat since Federations launch. Stellaris hit a peak concurrent player count of over 64 thousand in March, the highest since release 4 years ago. Since then, it's still regularly seeing higher than normally player counts.
In Stellaris Dev Diary #174, they teased that they've been "planning updates and working on patches" and while they have other smaller patches due they're "switching focus to a somewhat larger free update in May". Things get more exciting in the Stellaris Dev Diary #175, where they shared some initial details of what to expect and space is about to get a bit more lively. Space Fauna seems to be their current focus with a bunch of creatures now having their own home systems including the Tiyanki and Space Amoebas.
Not only that, they will spawn new creatures and sometimes leave in waves in search of new systems. For the Space Amoebas, if you manage to get friendly with them then they might spawn in your territory and annoy your enemies. All sounds quite exciting, can't wait to see what else they have planned. It's awesome how Paradox continue expanding their games free for everyone with big extras so long after release.
Additionally, they're also going to expand the options possible in the Galactic Community. This will include new "resolutions that allow you to decide how the galaxy should feel about the tiyanki". PDS are also working on "a resolution for pacifying amoebas, which you can propose if you have already pacified them".
You can find Stellaris on Humble Store, GOG and Steam.
There are still more bugs than what should be (especially cb broken once federated, minor sanctions clutter in GC and WIH totally messed up), but it's not as catastrophic as usual. Let's hope they maintain the trend!
If I had more time, I would start another play through.
Paradox is doing a great job in supporting and developing this game.
Next thing for me is surely buying the Lithoids DLC and play another game of Stellaris. But first I have to play a lot more of X4.
Quoting: HoriQuoting: LungDragoI'm afraid to look at and calculate how much energy credits it would cost me to buy in the missing DLC/expansions at this point. :(IKR I have had the same problem with EU4 for years... and it's only getting worse and worse as time passes. At this point I've given up on the idea of getting into it and would rather wait for a EU5... whenever that comes
Looks like Paradox heard us. There's a sale on Humble Bundle now with lots of Paradox DLC. :)
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