Stellaris
Stellaris

Stellaris

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Stellaris
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Stellaris
Stellaris
Explore a galaxy full of wonders in this sci-fi grand strategy game from Paradox Development Studios. Interact with diverse alien races, discover strange new worlds with unexpected events and expand the reach of your empire. Each new adventure holds almost limitless possibilities.
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Europa Universalis IV
Has been in:
• 5 bundles (Humble Bundle)
• 2 free (Epic Games Store)
Europa Universalis IV
From 4,27€
Crusader Kings III
Available in:
• 1 subscription (PC Game Pass)
Has been in:
• 1 subscription (Humble Choice)
Crusader Kings III
From 14,99€ and with a PC Game Pass subscription
Reviews
The reviews are taken directly from Steam and divided by regions and I show you the best rated ones in the last 30 days.

Reviews on english:
Reviews
87%
72,070 reviews
62,928
9,142
146.1 hours played
Written 13 days ago

Hate the 4.0+ update, but the earlier versions of this game are great. I have 130+ hours and I’ve just barely scratched the surface of what you can do Just reminding everyone you can easily play earlier versions of the game: settings (in the game’s library page) -> properties -> betas -> then pick whatever version you want to play
468.2 hours played
Written 27 days ago

Not so much a strategy game as a big space opera sandbox. You'll find all the familiar space opera tropes spread across the vanilla game and its many DLC offerings, with the various mechanics allowing you to realize just about any type of epic scale science fiction universe, from Star Wars and Dune to Star Trek and Babylon 5. Play the vanilla game for a while to get a feel for things. If you enjoy the experience and want more, consider trying out the DLC expansion for a month or so. Collectively they add a lot of great content, but not all of it may play into your particular play style. Note that at the time of writing this game is almost 10 years old, and that's somewhat reflected in the game's UI. It was designed to be readable on 720p displays, on 1440p and 4K displays the UI and graphics are going to look a little blurred unless you have a video card capable of integer scaling (and don't mind the pixelated look). There's a thriving mod community for the game and UI mods are easy to find, but don't expect miracles.
28.9 hours played
Written 19 days ago

Devs change all core mechanics every couple of years, from imperfect systems that work to imperfect system that dont work. Then they spend years fixing it, and when you finally grow accostumed to it, they will break it all again to change the systems. Dont waste your time.
571.7 hours played
Written 24 days ago

500 hrs in this game and only just learned random planets that are not inherently habitable CAN be terraformed wtf
260.8 hours played
Written 24 days ago

Paradox doesn't seem to know what to do with Stellaris, besides tack on an insane amount of buggy DLCs at inflated prices. For a space empire sim there's both a frustrating amount of micromanagement and a frustrating lack of precision in that management. The AI, as with all Paradox games, continues to be astoundingly dull. The optimization and UI are atrocious, especially for 2025. Mods prove that a number of the issues can be fixed within the game code, Paradox just doesn't care to because it won't let them push another "feature" filled DLC at a premium price. The base engine itself is pushing 20 years at this point and it certainly shows, with performance on high end systems grinding to a halt because they can't figure out how to run on more than one core with Clauswitz. The most frustrating thing about all this is the game could be so insanely good if they sat down and just ironed out the issues. More than 720p UI scaling, better use of scroll bars, making the AI just a little bit less dumb, better tools to deal with or automate the super frustrating micromanagement, setting a dedicated vision for the game. It could be worth the cost of all those DLCs, but it isn't, and they're not. 4.0 made everything so much worse I rolled back to 3.14. Just...come on Paradox. Maybe you won't mess up Stellaris 2 but I doubt that very, very much.
159.2 hours played
Written 3 days ago

Stellaris used to be a wonderful toy. But then it took an arrow in the knee. The pointy end of that arrow even has a name: it's "Four Point Zero", aka the Phoenix update. With all the recent DLCs of questionable quality the game has become a soggy, blobby mess of brilliant ideas that look good on paper, but require absurd amount of developer effort to implement properly. The growing complexity of the game internals and the perceivable difficulty of keeping it all from blowing itself apart doesn't discourage Paradox Interactive; it is not a secret that in a publicly traded company, the money must flow, as investors expect and demand. If you want to see if stacking up features without breaking the game is possible, look up Hello Games. Every update after NMS 1.0 was an actual phoenix rising from the ashes. Not surprisingly, HG is a privately held company.
279.4 hours played
Written 21 days ago

It's addicting. This game ruined my life. My career is gone, but don't worry, I have a shit ton of war crimes to commit. It's a 4X game in a theme of space war. You will engage in many ways: diplomatic, spy, ally, and war. With a ton of customization and level of detail, you can replay this game in FK Tone of playthrough. PLS give it a try. Wait for the sale and grab the main game with DLC called "Utopia." Its really fun game. Just grap a cup of tea or coffee with you and the time will past faster than any day in your life.
87.4 hours played
Written 5 days ago

I dont understand anything at all that is going on, but the sheer storytelling aspects plus just how hard it goes on the sci fi. I'm not a 4x games guy. Man i dont even know if this game is good compared to other 4x games. But I know I boot it up and then five hours are gone without me even noticing, and the soundtrack is good. So here is a positive but very useless review from someone who doesn't know anything about the genre. I am having fun.
662.4 hours played
Written 27 days ago

There is an argument that exists with games that have depth, which revolves around the concept of increasing depth can lead to increased complexity if done poorly, and increased complexity creates a barrier of entry for new players, because they have too much to learn just to get to grips with the basics. So the ideal when it comes to design, is to keep the depth but reduce the complexity. This game, since 4.0, feels like it is going in the opposite direction. Changes to the base game, in order to accommodate DLC, are NOT a good thing. Because if you dislike a DLC, you can turn it off, but you CAN'T rewind the game to change base game changes, unless you rollback and play a previous version. Since 4.0, I have little interest in playing anymore, which is infuriating because of the money I have spent on the game and the DLC (which I always use, with the exception of the rubbish weather DLC from last year). Changes to the base game which add complexity rather than reduce it, and can't be undone (you have to live with them), are the hallmark of the 4.0 patch. And even worse, there doesn't seem to be any actual improvement to the mechanics of the game which were previously pointless and boring (such as Espionage). To be fair, they made Trade a resource to care about (whoohoo), but it sucked before and still does, and should have just been removed, instead of 'fixed'. This is a game which has been cooking for too long, the constant stream of DLC has bloated the game, and instead of taking their time and making gradual improvements, the devs have repeatedly prioritised their next DLC payday (understandable) and rushed too many changes into the game. Changes which don't feel well thought out, have fundamentally changed the base game and added complexity instead of prioritising depth and reducing complexity, to the point where you can feel the bloat. At this point, I think they would be better off focusing on Stellaris 2 where they can start from scratch, instead of trying to build on a foundation that is straining under the weight of too much added content, and where the priority is selling DLC rather than fixing the long standing issues with the game, both in terms of performance and design. And that is a shame, because this used to be a brilliant game to play. Now it just feels like a chore.
1,546.1 hours played
Written 14 days ago

I've own Stellaris for about 10 years now, got almost every DLC and played more than 1.5k hours in single and multi player. I'm fine with Paradox' DLC policy, I generally love the game for its replayability and among the Paradox grand strategy portfolio this is one of the easier games to learn. I can really lose myself in the RP, I enjoy the mechanics and the story generation. I can even deal with the late game being ridiculously slow. But the 4.0 update brought game breaking bugs that still haven't been resolved. For me what broke the camel's back was that in every playthrough suddenly my ship upkeep spirals out of control without any logical explanation. I'm well within my fleet limit, have no empire modifiers to explain the cost and still energy and alloy upkeep are far beyond what my empire can compensate even through trade. Deleting all my fleets doesn't have the slightest impact on upkeep cost. How a company can release such a broken update is beyond my wildest imagination. Right now I cannot recommend Stellaris at all. It's in a broken state. I can only hope they fix it quickly and if so I'll update my review.
1,590.1 hours played
Written 26 days ago

I would like to say this is a great game. could have been. Sadly the developer is a bunch of money grubbing bean counters who couldn't code a website. They just "re-worked" the entire game to make it run better and it actually runs worse and now the planet menu is a hot confusing pile of ass, and nobody knows how to play the game anymore. This is not the first time they have tried something like this either, but instead of learning to code they think re-doing half the game is the solution.
196.2 hours played
Written 27 days ago

Not really sure if it's worth a recommendation anymore, when just buying all the DLCs is going to cost you a fortune.
2,842.9 hours played
Written 20 days ago

Owned base game since release. The 4.0 changes have made the game unplayable for months. It is difficult to tell what is intended vs broken and the new UI elements aren't helpful. And the direction some of the game is going in isn't my cup of tea. I regret buying the latest season pass. To be fair, I've sunk just shy of 3,000 hours into this game so hats off to a long run. Few games have been able to hold my attention that long. Respect to the Devs for past work. As of now, June 2025, I don't plan to buy any more DLC for Stellaris. I already got the newest season pass so I'll dip my toe in from time to time to see what was added. Even before the 4.0 changes, I have considered the prices of the DLC a bit high so now is a good time to start saving my money for something else.
2,060.0 hours played
Written 11 days ago

I've had a rather frustrating experience just now that got me incensed enough to post this review. Long story short, the Chosen (mid-game crisis that spawns with around 110k - 200k fleet power in GA) spawned before mid-game and abruptly ended a game that I was enjoying up until that far. They spawned because a bug allowed empires with 0 visibility with each other to initiate first contact, and my federation member completed it. This bug has been present in game for several major patches, and the developers (to my knowledge) has not acknowledged this bug, let alone have any plans to fix it. This is kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for me, because this is just the latest in a long string of happenings where the developers of this game has prioritized pushing out half-completed content for monetary gain, without the promised playability. I purchased this year's season pass because I genuinely love this game. I've spent hundreds of hours on this, and I thought the promised changes - especially the one regarding late-game performance improvements - were going to come through. Instead, there are still bugs and exploits present in the game even after nearly two dozen hotfixes, including ones that look innocuous but can potentially ruin games such as this. I understand the devs are not Robots. They have a work-life balance, and I respect that. Then, the developers should set a realistic timetable for their release schedule. You cannot eat your cake and have it too. If the studio cannot, for example, release 3 DLCs within the year that meets the requisite stability and quality, then they must accept that either they should reduce the number of planned content or accept that putting in more man-hours - whether it be through more hires or extra hours - is necessary. I feel like a complete moron for at least not waiting to see what the state of the game would be like after the 4.0 update, before purchasing the season pass. Some will say that this is the studio's Modus Operandi, and I should have known better. That's fine. The way I see it, the fact that this studio has amassed such a reputation is an indictment of their dishonesty, not my moral character. All I wanted to do was to support the people that made something that I enjoyed. My only fault was to act in good faith and assume that Paradox would do the same. Shame on you.
222.1 hours played
Written 7 days ago

TLDR: This a SCAM GAME that comes incomplete and requires over $200 in "DLC" to play a completed game. ~ This game is a great example of how predatory and disgusting the gaming industry has become. There is no reason this wouldn't be among the best strategy games I've ever played, other than the sheer greed of Paradox. This game costs over $200, and the real strategy to this strategy game is the predatory nature of it's piecemeal pricing. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED TO PAY THE $200+ it costs to buy the entire game and all it's "DLC". The DLC is absolutely nothing more than a slow drip of things that should have, and in fact are, a part of the main game. The game is not complete without the DLC, to the point where they will download all of the DLC to your computer when you buy the base game, and then you "unlock" it via further purchases as it becomes more and more apparent the game you are playing is incomplete and unsatisfying. This is even more obvious if you wanted to do something as foolish as playing online with a community that has been slowly leasing this game at the cost of about $20 per "DLC" coming out every 2 months or so.
13.6 hours played
Written 20 days ago

So much to do & I'm still messing with the base game and a few mods. Wish I could play on the go. This game is addictive
653.2 hours played
Written 11 days ago

This game used to be a lot of fun, and in a lot of ways it is still great, but the game is no longer something worth playing at this time. They need to go back to before districts, this system for managing planets is just bad. By mid game I no longer get to focus on sci fi and big space ship battles because I am constantly embroiled in a nightmare micromanagement simulator. I spend more time with the game paused tweaking jobs, districts, and building upgrades; than doing any part of the game that is actually fun. Do I never have enough consumer goods because I'm making too many amenities, trade, or unity? Who thought this would be fun to do? There is an AI manager, but it is terrible and barely does anything at all. If anything becomes unbalanced than it simply does nothing. Even when I get things balanced, any changes to my empire (sudden growth or loss) can send everything into a doom spiral. Suddenly the game is paused and you are going through one planet at time trying to figure out where it has all gone wrong. Worst I it takes three guides to understand just the UI used to manage planets. This is a game made by systems engineers for other systems engineers to enjoy. The game needs to go back to the old grid, or at least back to when you could automate whole sectors. Stay far away from it now.
409.7 hours played
Written 4 days ago

the dlc is expensive and required like all paradox games they make their money by bleeding a niche audience I love this game but cant recomend because of the dlc
168.7 hours played
Written 16 days ago

I'd sure love to play more of this, but the latest update broke the game to the point I cannot even launch it. Quit changing stuff just for the sake of it!
96.2 hours played
Written 20 days ago

Abysmal performance in the mid-to-late game after the 4.0 update. Seems it won't be fixed for a few months at this rate.
215.3 hours played
Written 17 days ago

After about 2 hours, i can finally have good games with whatever bullshit civ i decide to make. The only thing that will make me restart a game is my friend, who just so happens to always have a very bad time and demands a restart. 10/10 would restart again
702.5 hours played
Written 11 days ago

I like Stellaris a lot, i regularly play it, i am planning to get into modding, however i cannot recommend it to new players due to the state the game has been left in after the 4.0 update. Bugs everywhere, the ai doesn't stand a chance even on the hardest difficulty, the endgame lag is even worse and already starts in mid game
8,069.9 hours played
Written 16 days ago

I'm sure my playtime seems odd. It's a fun game. The devs suck at being devs. Give me the functioning game that I bought.
448.4 hours played
Written 22 days ago

My personal advice, if you like 4X strategy games and space exploration, buy the base game and use mods to fill in any missing content that you might want. Paradox Interactive has gone way overboard with this title. The price of the game is bad enough, then you add all of the ridiculous DLC which is sold at prices equivalent to an entire game. I've said this before, and I'll say it again, I'm done supporting the greedy bastards at Paradox Interactive.
468.2 hours played
Written 28 days ago

Well, last update (4.0.16) we got desyncs every sesh from fleets of more than 25 ships stacked for both player and bot ones' alike. With current patch (4.0.18) it became impossible to connect to MP if you aren't starting a new save. Small indie studio developing game
691.8 hours played
Written 9 days ago

I love this game, and it holds a special place in my heart, but I'm really tired of how Paradox handles DLC. They have a frustrating habit of releasing underwhelming, overpriced content that you need just to access core gameplay mechanics. So if you're buying this game, be prepared to set aside around $200 for the full experience.
642.1 hours played
Written 18 days ago

There was a time about 2 years ago I would have recommended this game. Now its a straight up don't bother. This game is so bug ridden from "additional content" and patches that break more than they fix ... it is not worth the money, time, effort, or aggravation to even try to play this total disaster.... do not recommend.
8,474.5 hours played
Written 10 days ago

This is a game that released a brilliant new form. Unfortunately it has gone down steadily until this last incarnation that just now gives me a headache to play. Its just become soooooo convoluted and contrived. Should have focused on less, better. Shame can't stand it now used to love it.
570.4 hours played
Written 8 days ago

Game is normally great, but its in a terrible state right now and the devs need to fix their game, its not playable. Don't bother buying the game or dlcs until Paradox fixes the game, its currently too broken. Once they fixed 4.X to be playable and actually deliver on their promises, then I'll change my review. They've done 21 patches and the game is still not even close to being how it should be.
491.2 hours played
Written 26 days ago

Love this game, despite the current state at time of writing, it is still by far one of my favorite games of all time. It is my most played game for a reason, and that is because it has INFINITE replay-ability. You can play so many different ways, do so many different things, and have so many different stories. Not only this but it is multiplayer, allowing you to slaughter billions of innocents with friends (or save billions if you are a loser). I love this game and hate seeing it get negative reviews like it is currently because of a update that has bugs. In my experience the greatest games have bugs (Helldivers II), and those who truly enjoy the game will not turn their backs on the game and developers for a mistake. Coding is hard, but loving this game is not, the game is worth every cent and every hour.
2,683.1 hours played
Written 22 days ago

I love Stellaris so much, I've spent thousands of ours playing modded Stellaris, it scratches so many itches for me. I also admire how the devs are not afraid to redesign things for a feeling of constant evolution. There are countless changes and updates that I have loved over the years. That being said, the latest DLC and update is simply atrocious, the release state of this content is not acceptable; game breaking bugs, useless AI, rushed release, overpriced DLC, etc. I have bought almost all DLCs since launch, but I refuse to buy the handful of recent ones. It feels like quality is rapidly decreasing and these updates are being pushed out just to meet deadlines and drive engagement. Until there is a public statement about the state of recent content from Paradox and a noticeable shift in direction, I can't recommend Stellaris to anyone. I doubt this is likely so I fully expect a slow and steady decline until "Stellaris 2" is launched and the DLC milking cycle begins again...
644.9 hours played
Written 4 days ago

I've played a ton of Stellaris. I love the game and it is my ultimate comfort game to play with friends (play enough and it becomes super relaxing). But I'm giving it a negative review for one reason, and that's Desync. I play this 'with my friends' but it's completely unplayable in multiplayer right now. I just got desync after three minutes of playing and it makes me want to punch my screen. Every single game as soon as desync starts it never stops and it has been an issue for LITERAL YEARS that they would rather ignore as they release more overpriced and broken DLC. The developer hates you and they'll never bother fixing this, go to the community and see before you even consider buying as that's not the only broken thing about this game, just the one that makes me loath it.
181.8 hours played
Written 19 days ago

This company has a very bad policy of just shoving out more DLC in order to charge people more for the game they already own while leaving the existing game in a broken and unplayable state OR actively make it worse with the addition of unbalanced garbage in the DLCs.
762.1 hours played
Written 10 days ago

I cannot even begin to describe how disappointed I am over the devs bringing GenAI into this. Like come on, please just hire voice actors to do this shit, and keep generative AI the fuck out of this game. I've been playing this game for longer than I can remember, and was always hyped over every new DLC even if the majority of the community wasn't. I will not be spending any more money on this IP until ya'll actually get real voices back in here to redo the content ya'll used AI for. Set a standard, and stick with it: NO GEN AI IN STELLARIS.
3,283.5 hours played
Written 8 days ago

I just have to say that the 4.0 version of Stellaris is not enjoyable. It's like they tried to mash together a whole lot of half-thought ideas and made a confusing and complicated mess out of something that was straightforward and WORKING--populations and the planet screen was not broken. If they had taken a few of the ideas they had and slowly introduced them, that could have worked. As it is, it's work to play and not enjoyable. YMMV.
361.1 hours played
Written 12 days ago

I have loved this game for a long time and played it since alpha. Each iteration of the game was different and fun but... At this point, Stellaris is not a $40 game. Currently with all the DLC with the game is nearly $200. Some DLC is fine but when it comes at the expense of the main game then it stops being okay. I would love to recommend this game but I wouldnt recommend the base game at $40 and I sure as hell wouldnt recommend the actual game considering the true Stellaris experience is nearly $200.
10.4 hours played
Written 6 days ago

Arbitrary game mechanics, with no 'in-universe' explanation, limiting what you are 'allowed' to do. It feels like being told to play slow and stupid so they can have more of your time and encourage the play style they want from you. These mechanics had very poor explanations, which makes things worse. Wish I could refund it, but it takes so long to get into a game that you can never get a refund because of play time. Even though I own this game, I play FreeOrion (which is a free and better version) instead. It's much better to play.
1,326.1 hours played
Written 1 month and 1 day ago

Im sorry i love the game but the recent major patch really fecked up, will come back in an year when its probably fixed.
991.9 hours played
Written 28 days ago

First of all i would highly recomend reading this review, since it covers a loooot of problems i and many others have with game, and does so very well: https://steamcommunity.com/id/WoodenPotatoes/recommended/281990 As for me, i would also like to add that after 4.0 AI broke so hard, the game is now permanently in easy mode even if you don't try anything. With enormous buffs AI gets they just refuse to build normal infrastructure. I had strongest nation in galaxy have only two planets and filled with forts and empty spaces. I taged into them to set up some bare minimum research buildings in empty space and they just removed all of them in a year. Playin singleplayer in this state is NOT fun, challanging or anything really. It's just boring. Ignoring the fact that the game is literally unplayable at the moment, i would also recomend to not even come close to it because... well, it's a paradox game. Buying base game will leave you with barebones experience and you will have to buy at least some dlc's to make it at least feel more compleate. I have been buying dlc's for a while, untill Astral Planes came out. Costing almost 14$ in my native currency it added 32 reskinned arheological sites, one mostly usless outside of DLC itself resource and nothing else. There are mods that add more for free. In fact there are a lot of them. However because paradox keeps updating game at neckbreacking pace, most of them become obsolete in a month or so. As of writing this review, complete stellaris experience costs almost 300$ of my native currency, which is waaaay cheaper then the rest of the world has to pay. Most of things you have to pay at the moment are so old, devs don't even consider you not having them, so good luck geting in 9+ years too late. On a less objective side of things, i would like to add that artistic direction of game had shifted significantly in past years, which makes most new assets just feel out of place. You can just tell that some portraits follow different principals, some icons are deffinetly drawn by different people. And also game is just bloated as hell. Fresh install of mine is 23.7 gigs, a lot of it are repeated assets, because devs for some reason just refuse to reference same image in code, instead copying it thee times and renaming every identical file. There are also many old, unused and placeholder files that should be left in dev builds, or outright removed. I don't need buldings from version 1.0 and chinese main menu image. Don't buy it. Get it from your friends, download a demo or something, DON'T BUY IT unless you are ready to be constantly disapointed. Because you will be.
162.9 hours played
Written 6 days ago

I really want them to go back to the way things were in 3.7 sure keep the new content but drop the changes to planetary buildings and pops and changes to UI nothing makes sense anymore as this game no longer even resembles itself in it's old form. Just fix the Performance and Lag for crying out loud. Moreover Stop! Just Stop Making DLC For this Game. It's already got a lot of Content Leave it to the Modders Now. Take all your new Ideas to Stellaris 2 the Stability of this Game has been Ruined one to many times for me to Enjoy Myself. Mods are ruined yet again being that some have been updated and others are dead as in totally unworkable and like HOI 4 I have had to Totally Uninstall Everything... All my files Corrupted, heck Missing Data Files from the Base Game. Better Yet Drop the Idea of DLC and Make an Entire Game and Sell it at Market Price Like the Good Old Days. I am tired of wasting what little free time I have fixing games and figuring out what mod works just to play them only to click on a Planet and then Realize... I don't understand the UI anymore... Some of us want to enjoy our free time. At least HOI 4 UI is mostly the Same in all iterations. This is my First Negative Review for Once. As this is Truly Worthy of my Ire.
764.8 hours played
Written 6 days ago

This is a game I've played off and on for years, I enjoy it and love it greatly, but Paradox has just dropped the ball massively with this 4.0 update. They've had rough updates before in the past but this update is by far the worst they've done. Ignoring the content they've added and changed with this update, the game itself dropped in the worst state the game had been in, hundreds of bugs, unfinished content that's being worked on and updated live, and worst of all, the insane performance drops. In the past you could play a save 200 years in before experiencing lag that reduced game speed to a level that was noticeable, now, in the 4.0 update you can see that same drop withing 50 years game time. The update was sold on the idea of performance upgrades but it seems they're not even mentioning how much they've destroyed performance with they're devlogs. Would not recommend playing the game at this time until they've released a few major updates.
16.6 hours played
Written 7 days ago

The game is kinda of scammy, with how little you get with the Base game and how much the DLC's costs. If you didn't know better like me, your suppose to get the Start pack, other wise the base game is not finshed.
320.7 hours played
Written 20 days ago

I absolutely love this game, 4.0 has made it unplayable. It's disappointing that Paradox continues to attempt and fail to hotfix 4.0 into a playable patch instead of listening to players and rolling it back until it's ready. On top of a lot of unnecessary redesign, I have a top of the line computer and I cannot play through the performance issues of the end game. I'm extremely disappointed.
5,753.5 hours played
Written 29 days ago

The 4.0 update broke a huge number of things in the game. It was pushed out after a very short "beta" test where most of the game didn't work. Despite the no joke hundreds of bugs that they had to know about at least a significant percentage of, they rushed the update out to meet a deadline. Now every build I play, I find a new thing that has been broken by the update. I'm not talking about stuff working differently and being upset about change. The game is lousy with bugs and stuff either doesn't work, or doesn't do what it's supposed to. I do not recommend purchasing Stellaris at this point, it's not remotely functional at this point. This from a person who owns every DLC and has over 5k hours sunk into this game. It used to be a great game, my favorite strategy game in a long time.
10.8 hours played
Written 2 days ago

Overwhelmed by tons of complex stuff in this game, too many things to explore, I need another life to enjoy it
1,125.4 hours played
Written 28 days ago

I used to love this game. Then they started changing things for no reason every update. Changes that were either bad or meaningless, but rarely good. I don't remember which version it was, but it was around when they took out Admin Capacity that it started getting on my nerves. Every month or two (it felt like) they would introduce some new rework that made my experience slightly worse or didn't change anything noticeable, invalidating my save games and having me wait for my favorite mods to be updated. (Make no mistake, the vanilla game was fun, but certain mods like Gigastructural Engineering and Ethics and Civics took it to a whole new level.) I'm writing this review because even though I haven't played Stellaris in over a year now, I often have the urge to play one type of empire or another, theorycrafting fun thematic ascension perks, civics, etc. to use from different mods. Then I look at the recent posts of what dlc has come out, how many updates there've been, and I remember why I stopped playing. It's just too much waiting outside of the game, too much figuring out what has changed and which new dlcs I should avoid because of some unfathomable addition. (I stopped at them adding cloaked fleets that could apparently get past your forts. What use are forts, then? I don't know if that ever became a problem, got fixed, or if players found a way around it, or if it never amounted to much.) I want to play Stellaris again, but this seems to be a game with an identity crisis. Or more like, a self-image problem. It can't stop changing systems, mechanics, and UI elements that were just fine. It can't let go of superficial problems that mods fix anyway. (UI in particular.) This was the first Paradox game I ever played, and my most-played game for a long time. Through it, I found EUIV, my favorite ever since (Just when that game got stale, I found the Anbennar mod. Perfection.) and CK3. While those games have their own problems, the comparative stability of them made me realize how much of a hassle playing Stellaris had become. I had a lot of fun with Stellaris, and I'll always wish for it to fulfill its potential. But I don't think I'll come back to it unless it stops this doomed cycle of superficial updates and un-asked-for changes.
1,923.7 hours played
Written 28 days ago

The 4.0 update broke just about everything from multiplayer constant desync that soft lock the save you've been playing to entire civ builds just not working. Not mentioning the insane cost just to play the single player experience.
234.5 hours played
Written 11 days ago

pretty good game but 4.0 fucked it up for me and now i cant run it without crashing after like 1 hour
590.9 hours played
Written 1 month and 1 day ago

Stellaris is one of my favorite games but it is so unbelievably bug-ridden I can no longer recommend it in good conscience.
1,681.6 hours played
Written 8 days ago

If I'm going to continue being an unpaid alpha tester I at least want the game balance to be addressed. During the 3.0 years several base game civics were removed/changed for being too good only for the next DLC to add something even more broken then what was just nerfed. It feels like the balance is willy nilly and all over the place. A physic or society focused tech empire is seemly allowed while Engineer focused empires were nerfed to the point of still being a subpar to this day. But rather then go back and buff weak civics back to be equal with the new ones they leave them weak and keep introducing broken DLC