Stellaris is... not the game it originally launched as. It's not the first time it's become a new game, either. Paradox has devoted a lot of time and effort into developing a balanced, immersive, randomly-generated Grand Strategy 4X game. Like all their other games, there is plenty to praise and plenty to complain about.

PROS:
- Incredibly customisable
This is the biggest and most important feature of the game. It's a brand new galaxy, with no prior material to refer to. There's no need to balance the nations of Europe against the Ottoman Empire, or to remove particular symbols or events in order to avoid censorship in certain countries. So you can mod it. You can mod anything you don't like. And that means that even if you have problems with certain mechanics, you can change them to something you like. And that's awesome. It also makes room for Star Trek, Star Wars, Eve Online, and many other total conversions, which are all pretty neat, but usually suffer from a heavy performance hit. But more on that later...

- A sense of scale
Stellaris is deep. Every planet has "pops" which carry out "jobs", like mining minerals, or turning minerals into the metal alloys you use to build ships. Each pop is simulated with their own ideology, growth preference, and happiness. And each day, they're checked against every other job on their planet to see if they should fill it. This is about as bad for the late-game performance as you might expect. But it's an indication of the detail the game delves into. Your decisions might affect the happiness of your pops of a certain species, and if that species lives on your world mining minerals for your empire, you can crash the economy by ruining the mineral income you were depending on to fuel those alloy foundries which you built on your homeworld.

Similarly, the game doesn't push you in the direction of any one playstyle. Almost everything is viable, so long as you keep up with tech. Fortunately, there are ways around the drawbacks of a particular game. Settling lots of planets? Build the bureaucratic centres and remove the penalty to your research and leadership costs. The depth of ways to play is difficult to explain in a review. You make choices, which lead to more choices, and all snowball to accumulate powerful effects.

- Art and sound design
What can I say? Andreas Waldetoft composes another masterful score. Despite drawing inspiration from all sorts of sci-fi and fantasy settings, Stellaris manages to deliver a fresh setting which looks pretty, delivers information reasonably well, and sounds fantastic.

CONS:
- Horrible endgame performance
Look, you likely haven't spent £1000s on your PC. Or maybe you have, like me, but it was a few years ago, and your i5-4670k just doesn't have the beans it used to back in 2013. All those simulated pops really cause problems during the late game. Stellaris struggles to run a medium-sized galaxy into the ~2400s. Just when your empire is finishing the tech tree, your fleets are stronger than all your neighbours, and you're ready to conquer the galaxy... it's frustrating. It also locks you out of the endgame content and makes it feel like progressing onwards is a chore. While the latest big patch helped somewhat, I think Paradox need to dial back some of the "simulation", especially for AI empires. Why should AI pops be simulated? The player will never see that.

- Piecemeal DLC model
Look, I'm not a fan of having an "incomplete" game. I'm really bad for sinking a lot of time into games to collect everything I can possibly find or unlock. Paradox's games since Crusader Kings II have abused that tendency by offering up many slices of DLC, which each offer a few small tweaks or storylines to pad out the game. In multiplayer, at least, having a host with all the content means you can play with it there, but I don't accept that as OK. I have given up on EU IV, CK2, and HOI4 because I'm unwilling to pay £100 for a full game, even using steam sales. Stellaris is the only one I've stuck with. This is a greedy, greedy publisher.

- Tough learning curve
The downside of having a lot of content. Multiplayer helps, a lot, as you can have a friend take you through the mechanics and ask their advice on the big choices. But it will take a couple hundred hours to really get good at the game. It's not a game for people who don't have lots of free time. And that's unfortunate.

All in all, I (marginally) recommend Stellaris. Pick it up if you're a fan of 4X games, or Sci-fi strategy, and have plenty of time for it. Otherwise, give it a miss.

[b]Stellaris is... not the game it originally launched as. It's not the first time it's become a new game, either. Paradox has devoted a lot of time and effort into developing a balanced, immersive, randomly-generated Grand Strategy 4X game. Like all their other games, there is plenty to praise and plenty to complain about.[/b] [u]PROS:[/u] - Incredibly customisable This is the biggest and most important feature of the game. It's a brand new galaxy, with no prior material to refer to. There's no need to balance the nations of Europe against the Ottoman Empire, or to remove particular symbols or events in order to avoid censorship in certain countries. So you can mod it. You can mod anything you don't like. And that means that even if you have problems with certain mechanics, you can change them to something you like. And that's awesome. It also makes room for Star Trek, Star Wars, Eve Online, and many other total conversions, which are all pretty neat, but usually suffer from a heavy performance hit. But more on that later... - A sense of scale Stellaris is deep. Every planet has "pops" which carry out "jobs", like mining minerals, or turning minerals into the metal alloys you use to build ships. Each pop is simulated with their own ideology, growth preference, and happiness. And each day, they're checked against every other job on their planet to see if they should fill it. This is about as bad for the late-game performance as you might expect. But it's an indication of the detail the game delves into. Your decisions might affect the happiness of your pops of a certain species, and if that species lives on your world mining minerals for your empire, you can crash the economy by ruining the mineral income you were depending on to fuel those alloy foundries which you built on your homeworld. Similarly, the game doesn't push you in the direction of any one playstyle. Almost everything is viable, so long as you keep up with tech. Fortunately, there are ways around the drawbacks of a particular game. Settling lots of planets? Build the bureaucratic centres and remove the penalty to your research and leadership costs. The depth of ways to play is difficult to explain in a review. You make choices, which lead to more choices, and all snowball to accumulate powerful effects. - Art and sound design What can I say? Andreas Waldetoft composes another masterful score. Despite drawing inspiration from all sorts of sci-fi and fantasy settings, Stellaris manages to deliver a fresh setting which looks pretty, delivers information reasonably well, and sounds fantastic. [u]CONS:[/u] - Horrible endgame performance Look, you likely haven't spent £1000s on your PC. Or maybe you have, like me, but it was a few years ago, and your i5-4670k just doesn't have the beans it used to back in 2013. All those simulated pops really cause problems during the late game. Stellaris struggles to run a medium-sized galaxy into the ~2400s. Just when your empire is finishing the tech tree, your fleets are stronger than all your neighbours, and you're ready to conquer the galaxy... it's frustrating. It also locks you out of the endgame content and makes it feel like progressing onwards is a chore. While the latest big patch helped somewhat, I think Paradox need to dial back some of the "simulation", especially for AI empires. Why should AI pops be simulated? The player will never see that. - Piecemeal DLC model Look, I'm not a fan of having an "incomplete" game. I'm really bad for sinking a lot of time into games to collect everything I can possibly find or unlock. Paradox's games since Crusader Kings II have abused that tendency by offering up many slices of DLC, which each offer a few small tweaks or storylines to pad out the game. In multiplayer, at least, having a host with all the content means you can play with it there, but I don't accept that as OK. I have given up on EU IV, CK2, and HOI4 because I'm unwilling to pay £100 for a full game, even using steam sales. Stellaris is the only one I've stuck with. This is a greedy, greedy publisher. - Tough learning curve The downside of having a lot of content. Multiplayer helps, a lot, as you can have a friend take you through the mechanics and ask their advice on the big choices. But it will take a couple hundred hours to really get good at the game. It's not a game for people who don't have lots of free time. And that's unfortunate. All in all, I (marginally) recommend Stellaris. Pick it up if you're a fan of 4X games, or Sci-fi strategy, and have plenty of time for it. Otherwise, give it a miss.