Stellaris: Distant Stars (PC) Review

This DLC reminds of the Apocalypse or Utopia DLC in that there are actual interesting changes and content included. It comes alongside another update to the base, so in many cases what is being discussed here is hard to separate in terms of the update compared to the DLC.

Among the biggest changes is a massive expansion to survey events. In previous plays it was extremely common to run into the same event four or five times. There are plenty of simple new anomalies to read and find, but the real depth is in more involved ones that will be explained. An interesting aspect is now some of these actually ones that are bad, and it adds a bit of a change to merely just clicking on everything.

The developer has re-worked the hyper-lanes that made it have more inter-connectivity, while also making choke points. It acts as a sort of terrain, which was needed, rather than amorous blob empires that once were in the mix. There is a rush to grab the choke points, shutting off any expansion beyond them for those too slow to get there first.

Other changes have gone a long way to increasing the fun and decreasing the grind. Most of this DLC is focused in the early and mid-game where it can be very 'grindy' - just claiming land and nothing happening. This adds a lot of new things to explore, such as a secretive 'L-Cluster' of stars that can only be arrived at through closed wormholes, or a 'Shrouded World.' All of these involve a lot of work, which keeps the player engaged.

Along with this, the new patch goes a long way to making the action more fun, as well; there are a lot of balancing changes and improvements. There is enough merely in the rebalance to make it feel like a slightly different title, and with all the new events / DLC, even those who haven't picked it up in a while will find enjoyment.