- [T.J.] If you asked me what genre would be least likely
to work with a gamepad, a complex grand strategy game
of Stellaris's breed would be near the top of the list.
But much to my surprise, the team behind this port
of Paradox's space-opera sandbox
have managed to do a really admirable job
translating the controls.
Coming the PC version however, I can't help but notice
that they've ported a long-outdated version of Stellaris
that's still full of major gameplay shortcomings
which have been solved for a while now
on that side of the fence.
And man, is it hard to go back.
If you've never even looked at Stellaris before,
there are plenty of reasons to get excited
about Console Edition.
It's one of the most ambitious and innovative
space 4X games to come out in the last decade.
You're given fine control over designing your empire's
government and primary species, using a variety of flavorful
and impactful trait choices, allowing you to be anything
from an iron-fisted dictatorship of bloodthirsty turtles,
to a peaceful technocracy led by whatever this thing is.
The portraits you can pick from include enough weird,
memorable, and sometimes hilarious aliens
to fill the Mos Eisley cantina a few times over.
Once you get out onto the great-looking star map,
the biggest factor that sets Stellaris ahead
of similar games is how effectively it creates the illusion
of being part of a living, organic galaxy,
not just a board game with a space theme.
Where series like Master of Orion and Civilization
have leaned harder into the idea
that you should play a specific way
in pursuit of a specific set of goals,
Stellaris allows you to simply explore, experiment,
and decide on the benchmarks of success
you want to hit all on your own.
There are a few baked-in victory conditions
like owning a certain number of planets,
but I can't say that I've ever paid that much attention
to them.
Pursuing the goals I've imagined for my empire,
whether that's finding and uplifting
as many pre-FTL civilizations as possible,
or declaring a crusade against all non-democratic despots,
is always more entertaining.
And doing so is only made more enjoyable
by one of my favorite game scores ever.
(exciting music)
Paradox Games are notorious for having menus upon menus,
but they're all fairly easy to access with the d-pad
and some clever use of screen space.
A few rough spots, such as how it's sometimes difficult
to order a specific ship to a specific spot using the cursor
rear their heads every so often.
And in the last game,
the outliner that lets you quickly select
all of your planets and fleets can get a little cluttered.
The only way to navigate it is using the d-pad,
which is fairly slow when there are a lot of entries.
I found myself wondering why I couldn't press
the currently unused L1 and R1 buttons
to quickly switch between categories.
My biggest disappointment by far though
is that Console Edition is based on Stellaris 1.7,
making it about a year and a half out-of-date
compared to the PC version.
And for a game by Paradox,
a developer known for evolving its games dramatically,
that makes a galaxy of difference.
The 2.0 update completely overhauled warfare
and 2.2 redid empire management.
Issues that tedious cat-and-mouse fleet chases
and the busywork-heavy planetary tile system
are cast into even sharper relief
knowing what life is like without them.
Leading with 1.7 was not putting the best foot forward,
and it's a decision I struggle to understand.
It's really hard to go back to a version
that doesn't include these very important changes
that made Stellaris a dramatically better game.
The other moderately annoying thing I noticed
was the maximum game speed, even on a PS4 Pro,
is significantly slower than what my five-year-old
Core I7 CPU on PC can pump out.
And given that Stellaris 1.7 was already a game
where a lot of time could pass without much happening,
that can really lead to some boring stretches
of waiting for technologies to research
or a new colony to finish.
Conquering the galaxy and discovering its deepest secrets
with a controller in hand is a much better experience
than I would have thought possible for this type of game.
Thanks to extensive customization
and its liberating play-your-own-way attitude,
Stellaris Console Edition is the most fun you can have
with a space 4X game on Xbox One or PlayStation 4 right now.
That said, if you have a PC that can run Stellaris
on decent settings, there's really no question
that you should prefer that over Console Edition.
At least until it has time to catch up
with the major feature changes that over a year
of significant patches have brought,
I'll be keeping my copy in cryo sleep.
For more 4X, check out our reviews of At the Gates
and Civilization VI: Gathering Storm,
and for everything else, stick with IGN.