

Oh, there’s station upgrades and ion cannons to fortify your systems, but the flashiest way is the new Titan class starship. Galactic Emperors have options to counter the new planet killers. Finally, you can realize your interstellar Mad Max dreams. Some civilizations can specialize in living on post-apocalyptic planets. Some civilizations specialize in abducting the population right before everything goes all Alderaan. Obviously, the big headline feature (and the name) is just outright obliterating planets with a new planet-killing ship. Since launch, they’ve been working in other things to do, and I think Apocalypse is where the game really becomes what it was meant to be.

At launch, you built up your star empire, tinkered with settings, put things in motion, and then watched until there was another civilization to kick or an uprising to quell. Maybe the most important thing Apocalypse does is build upon the work they’ve been doing on making the mid-game more fun. MonsterVine was supplied with Steam copy for review It’s good, but you’re going to have to completely change everything you knew about playing Stellaris. The Apocalypse expansion for Stellaris is one of those expansions, adding important features, fixing a ton of bugs, and even adding a few new tracks to the already stellar (ha!) soundtrack. Paradox, on the other hand, tends to drop patches and expansions that completely change the way the game plays and add tons of new things. They’ll fix bugs and maybe issue some DLC, but the game itself stays the same. They’re a nomadic people who live on the fringes and raid civilizations.Some developers and publishers are content to tinker around the edges with released games. There is also a new faction that works differently from the rest called Marauders.

The game also brings a new Titan class capital ships, the largest vessels in Stellaris, and is capable of leading fleets and grant bonuses to any units under their wing. With new mechanics in place, players can use these weapons as they were intended, for mass destruction, or as a deterrent for other factions thinking of taking you on. With weapons such as the “Colossus” weapon, players can wipe out entire planets in a matter of seconds, as long as they put forth the resources to build it. Stellaris: Apocalypse takes the typical Stellaris approach of combat and adds doomsday device-like weaponry. The expansion will focus on a new warfare option that really changes the tides of war. Paradox Interactive announced today that the newest expansion to the sci-fi empire-destroying space sim Stellaris: Apocalypse will be seeing release on February 22, 2018.
