Recent reviews by tefla

I'm genuinely torn on whether to recommend this game or not.

Here's what makes this game good:

In terms of space-themed grand strategy, nothing out there does quite what Stellaris does. There's a ton of emphasis on story and you genuinely get sucked into creating your civilization--this is Stellaris at it's best. Struggling against your neighbors dead-set on purging you, building your economy, finally unlocking that perk you've been chasing--it's all very gratifying.

Here's where the game falls short:

Bugs. Bugs everywhere. Some major bugs have been in the game for literally years, one patch will fix it, the next will break it again. They span the gamut from minor to game breaking.

Honestly though, this pales in comparison to the abysmal performance. To be blunt: Stellaris is one of the most poorly optimized major releases I've ever played. As of the current patch, late game is unplayable. Your system specs don't matter--it's the game. Once you hit late-game everything slows to a crawl. The game does a bunch of calculations on the 1st of every month (in-game clock). As you get late in the game, it will literally freeze on this day for 10-15 seconds, I've had up to 20-30. Even on the fastest setting, things slow to a crawl and there's nothing you can do. Performance has been poor for years. Devs have promised improvements, and they have delivered some small changes--but nothing that really fixes the experience. Unfortunately, Paradox seems more concerned with sucking out as much money as possible from it's consumers through DLCs and cosmetic packs. This latest patch (2.7) actually made things much worse. The cherry on top? Devs were aware of the issue and pushed the patch through anyway--just look at the release notes. There was no beta test server where anyone who actually played the game could have told them this, before it went live. But that's just par for course with a Paradox game.

If this review sounds bitter, it's because I am. This game has so much potential. It has moments where it truly, truly shines. Between multiplayer desyncs, ignored bugs, terrible performance, and overpriced DLCS--there is great, fulfilling gameplay. Overall though, the issues are unacceptable and make it difficult to encourage someone to buy the game when it still has these issues 4+ years into the lifecycle.

Verdict: buy at a steep discount if you're a fan of this type of game--otherwise pass.