Stellaris News

With the First Contact Story Pack the galaxy is full of alien empires you’re going to encounter, whether you’re ready or not. First Contact offers a set of new origins and mechanics that allow players to tell stories about their civilizations’ early encounters with visitors from the stars — ones that may not have come in peace!

• New Origins

  • Payback - Your civilization was invaded by – and repelled – an advanced invader from the stars. With access to their technology, your empire is now ready to enter the galactic stage and find out just what else is out there.

  • Broken Shackles - Band together as the survivors of a crashed slaver ship and build a diverse empire with multiple species from across the galaxy. Embark on a quest to find your various homeworlds, as long as you escape the prying eyes of your former captors.

  • Fear of the Dark - A portion of your population has embraced isolationism and xenophobia, ever since a planet in your solar system suffered an “incident”. Will you ignore their concerns and explore the stars, making “friends” along the way? Or will you appease their isolationism in order to grow your civilization even more powerful?

• New Pre-FTL interactions

• Enhanced mechanics for observation and diplomacy

• New Espionage Operations for infiltrating and uplifting pre-FTL targets

• New stories and events

• Unique Pre-FTL civilization: Renewable Society

• Added Pre-FTL Hiveminds (requires Utopia + First Contact)

• Pre-FTL civilizations can have a small chance to spawn with one of the following origins:

  • Shattered Ring (Requires Federations)

  • Mechanists (Requires Utopia)

  • Life-Seeded (Requires Apocalypse)

  • Ocean Paradise (Requires Aquatics Species Pack)

  • Subterranean (Requires Overlord)

• 12 new Insight Technologies added - A new category of techs gained from observed Pre-FTLs

• New Civics allowing early jump drive based exploration at the cost of starting without Hyperdrives:

  • Eager Explorers

  • Private Exploration

  • Stargazers

  • Exploration Protocol

• Added Cloaking and Cloaking Detection

  • Up to 10 levels of Cloaking/Cloaking Detection, with smaller hulls being easier to cloak than larger hulls

  • Military Ships cannot be detected by normal sensors, may ignore closed borders as long as they remain undetected, and can decloak to ambush hostile ships

  • Science Ships may cloak to explore beyond closed borders, gather intel from other empires’ planets, and boost cloaking detection of a starbase

Find out more about the First Contact Story Pack:

Stellaris: Console Edition Development Diary #70 - We have made contact

With Galactic Paragons, you will experience a new level of character and story as great leaders rise to positions of power and follow your lead to the stars. With exclusive additions to the all-new Council mechanic, leaders you can shape to amplify the vision for your empire, new civics, and much more, Galactic Paragons will shape the future in ways the galaxy has never seen before.

• New Council Mechanics

  • Assign leaders to vital positions and set agendas to steer your empire as you see fit. In Galactic Paragons, find dozens of unique council roles based on your civics and government types, and unlock additional positions as your empire evolves!

• New Dynamic Leaders

  • Recruit, improve, and follow the leaders of your empire through the ages! You may shape them by picking their traits, selecting their veteran class, and guide them towards their destiny, up until they retire - or perish!

• Meet Galactic Heroes

  • Attract paragons of renown to your council: unique leaders with their own art, events, and stories may join your empire and bring their own benefits to your government. Or, discover four Legendary Paragons with intricate event chains and unique mechanics!

• Two New Tradition Trees

  • Statecraft

  • Aptitude

• New Civics

  • Vaults of Knowledge/Knowledge Mentorship/Neural Vaults/Experience Cache

  • Crusader Spirit

  • Pharma State

  • Letters of Marque

  • Heroic Past

  • Oppressive Autocracy

• A new “Under One Rule” Origin that tells the tale of the leader who founded your empire

• 12 new Veteran Classes

• Hundreds of new Leader Traits

• New ships, art, and story content

Find out more about Galactic Paragons:

Stellaris: Console Edition Development Diary #71 - Making leaders matter

Stellaris: Console Edition Development Diary #72 - Civics and Origins in Galactic Paragons

Free 3.9 “Caelum” Update

The 3.9 “Caelum” update is one of our largest updates for Stellaris: Console Edition yet. Compiling four patches into one update, the team at Tantalus has gone above and beyond to deliver enhanced gameplay features, new mechanics, bug fixes, and performance and stability improvements for Stellaris: Console Edition.

3.9 “Caelum” on Console Edition Major Features:

• Fleet Combat Rebalance, including a new ship size (the frigate)

• Ascension Paths rework, changing ascension paths into Tradition Trees (requires Utopia)

• New Galaxy shapes

• Text-to-Speech added to events

• Rework of Pre-FTL civilizations and interactions

• Empire Council and Council Agendas

• Ruler Creator during empire creation

• Sector Editor

• Rebalance of orbital bombardment, including the option to allow planets to surrender from orbital bombardment alone

• Enhanced Science ship automation

• Improved Planetary Automation

• Habitat rework (requires Utopia or Federations)

• Trade rebalance

New Content for previously released DLCs:

Humanoid Species Pack

• Added the new Enmity tradition tree focused on making and maintaining rivalries

• Added three new species traits available to all Biological and Lithoid Species

• Positive: Existential Iteroparity

• Negative: Psychological Infertility

• Negative: Jinxed

• Added two new portraits

Lithoid Species Pack

• Added a new Void Hive Civic for Hive Minds

• Added the Selective Kinship Civic 

• Added a new humanoid inspired portrait

• Added the Federated Theian Preservers prescripted empire

Plantoids Species Pack

• Fruitful Partnership Origin for Fungoid and Plantoid species

• Added a new Invasive Species trait available for Fungoid and Plantoid species

• Added a new Dryad inspired portrait

• Added the Blooms of Gaea prescripted empire

• Idyllic Bloom Civic has been buffed

• Phase 4 gaia seeders will now grant 3-5 pops the Gaia World Preference and Bloomed trait every 5 years as well as increasing the effects of this trait (and the Budding trait) by +50%.

• The Bloomed trait gives +10% resources from jobs, +10% pop growth speed, -10% amenities and -10% housing used when the pop is on a gaia world.

Necroids Species Pack

• Added a new Mechromancy Ascension Perk for Machine empires

• Added the Cordyceptic Drones civic for hiveminds, allowing them to reanimate all organic space fauna

Ancient Relics Story Pack

• Archaeotechnologies added - A new branch of society research, with new technologies revolving around the study and use of minor artifacts to create unique ship components, starbase modules and planetary buildings

• Added the new Archaeoengineers Ascension Perk

Nemesis

• Added the new Kaleidoscope Midgame Situation

Federations

• Added Conclave Federation Election type

Utopia

• Added Ascensionists Civic

Find out more about the free 3.9 “Caelum” update:

Stellaris: Console Edition Development Diary #73 - Free Patch Features

These new DLC and the free 3.9 “Caelum” update all combine to bring what we believe to be the best version of Stellaris: Console Edition yet!

Get Galactic Paragons and First Contact today, or as part of Expansion Pass Six!