There's more than one planet. Is there not more than one planet? Maybe that planet was the bad guys to her. I don't know! I don't know her story or who she's dying for 😅
@@HannaHsOverInvested the first trailer was the people defending the planet from aliens and they lost and planet was destroyed by a super weapon. The trailer was for a dlc that added that super weapon among other things.
@@HannaHsOverInvested the person and everyone else in the small defense force of that colony die to defend their world against an overwhelming threat - and the planet still gets blown up, meaning that her kid likely died.
Hey Hannah! Stellaris, like most paradox grand strategy games does not have a strict story to tell, but its more a storytelling engine. You create your own species with its ideologies and set off into the galaxy. The game basically then reacts to your choices and playstyle, whether you are peaceful and warmongering. One example is, if you invest on robotic workers early on they might gain sentience and demand equal right. Totally up to you how you handle it. The story of your empire is the story of stellaris. These videos are written in a way to showcase big expansion features, like being able to form multi empire federations, or building planet killers in apocalypse.
Great reactions! I love Stellaris. As others have commented, Stellaris is a strategy game, so while it does not have a specific story to tell, you might think of it as a "story generator". For example, I love to prebuild empires from many sci-fi franchises (Star Trek, Stargate, Mass Effect, The Culture books, Farscape, and so on). For each, I pick out species traits and origin, government type, ethics, and civics, and appearance. I've made 40+ of these over the years. When I play a new game, I pick one empire that I want to control, and then the rest of the galaxy will be populated by a random assortment of 8-12 of the others controlled by the computer. Basically, each time I get to simulate what might happen if a galaxy was filled with a random mix of my favorite sci-fi empires!
11:11 it's a Star-Eater. A ship that blows off the star of a star system, turns it into a black hole and completely destroys anything except itself in the system. There is a part 1 of that Nemesis video showing what it does when it fires.
I was just thinking about suggesting Stellaris for you (would have been my first comment on your channel, I think). So it's super exciting to see that you just naturally did it!
"are they the bad guys?" depends. Stellaris is amazing in the way you can tell whatever story you want. Some of those stories are horrifying at an incredible level, but some can be amazingly hopeful.
Thanks for the video. That apocalypse trailer is my favorite and definitely one of my favorite video game trailers in general. Very inspiring and hopeful, albeit ultimately bleak in the end. Stellaris has a whole lot more trailers, it would be cool to see another part. The fourth anniversary trailer is another one of my favorites, very close to the apocalypse one for me.
Do you do anything with them? You should. I'm working on a book that has grown into a whole series in my mind now, thanks to 1) the love of sci fi my grandma instilled in me as a child by watching all her favorite shows with me and 2) the frankly gross amount of time I've spent playing Stellaris, seeing as I've never finished a single game before an update made my current one unplayable.
Stellaris is a 4X Game, (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate). A grand strategy game. You can normally win by using any 1 of those 4 methods. So you can be friendly and win, or be NOT friends and win.
I'm so happy that you reacted to Stellaris and that you liked it, the game doesn't have a story, instead you make your own while you're playing it, but the trailers are connected in small ways, for example the anniversary trailer happens after the Apocalypse one, as you can see many refugees been helped by that other stellar nation. There are more trailers that are connected and others that are kind of their own thing (like the toxoid trailer), also yeah, robots are sentient in the Stellaris Universe, not all of them tho. Apocalypse is my favorite one, it has just so many little details like the voices saying the oath of the United Nations of Earth becoming fewer as the fight goes on. I think that there's a playlist that has all the trailers in order so you can have an easier time watching the rest (if you decide to), but if you only want a direct follow up of the events of the first trailer then I recommend watching the trailers for Utopia (happens right after Apocalypse), Synthetic Dawn and Megacorp. Again, thanks for reacting to Stellaris and for trying to keep us feed with content even if you're busy with school. PS: I think you are saying Stellaris right, at least that's how I say it PS2: Saving up so I can buy the three books!
This. Stelaris is another 4X strategy game. In very general terms it's similar to Civilizations which you reacted to earlier, but in space. Most of these commercials are for expansions to the game. Each adds another type or set of interaction to the game that enriches the way that the game can be played. Giving a play through richer and more varied game play. As folks have mentioned game modifications which do much the same thing. All together these options make for a varied and repayable experience.
Love Stellaris the mods for the game are amazing from Star Wars to Star Trek. These change the character displays to fit into Star Wars along with voice lines and music. They also change the ships as well so you can have a whole fleet of Imperial Star Destroyers to Tie Fighters. Same case for Star Trek from a Galaxy Class to a Sovereign class. Even if you don't use mods the base game has so many different factions ranging from large empires to planets that have native life on them (Life Earth) in different stage of development from ancient history to modern early space-age. You can choose to boost these planets with knowledge to make them develop to a new era faster and you know maybe turn them into a space age civilization where they can start to explore space and colonise planets. You can Invade them or add them to you're federation so many opinions. It pulls from a lot of Sci Fi so you can very much make it you're own from developing a planet into one massive mega city to building space stations or finding an ancient Halo Ring. Very overwhelming but once you get into it the games so much fun.
actually the game itself doesnt have a story. you have to make up the story yourself. by the way the game is a strategy game where you control one of many star nations. which might be a nice one like Star Treks earth or something more similar to the imperium of man where any aliens get murdered on principle
The game is a strategy game where you make your own story as for the question “are they the bad guys?” That’s both a simple and complicated answer because in Stellaris committing war crimes is almost expected of you and anyone can be good or evil in these games
One of my favorite games to create all sorts of narratives. Playing the game, you get to create your own species, give them traits and form their governments. You can play as you desire, whether you want to be a ruthless warlord, or a diplomat, making friends instead. The game grabs vibes from all kinds of sci-fi, from Star Trek to Star Wars, so you're definitely not wrong in feeling that vibe come through!
Stellaris as a whole is basiclaly every possible Sci-Fi setting crammed into a single game. You have your Star Treks with federations, your Star Wars politics, the utter grim darkness of Warhammer 40k, and so on and so on and so on. You can have freaking Xenomorphs from Aliens as ground troops for sods' sake.
So to fill up your knowledge I'd suggest following Stellaris trailers: Stellaris - "Tour of the Galaxy" Pre-order Trailer - tells about features of game and how it looks like; Stellaris Launch Trailer - Grand Strategy on a Galactic Scale - follow up to the previous one; Stellaris: Utopia "Path to Ascension" Release Date Reveal Trailer - purely cinematic; Stellaris: Utopia - Release Trailer - follow up to previous one showing also features of DLC; Stellaris: Megacorp - Expansion Release Date / Story Trailer; Stellaris: Aquatics Species Pack | Announcement Trailer; Stellaris: Aquatics Species Pack | Release Trailer - follow up to the previous one with something special in it; Stellaris: Toxoids | Announcement Trailer - you really missed on that one;
Most Stellaris DLCs have two trailers, one on anouncement and one on release. For example there's the Response, which is humanity's well response to having one of its worlds blown up by aliens. And about the Borg, although some races can resemble them in behavior they don't really exist in the game. Instead you have the Blorg! A race of sentient space mushrooms who randomly picked on human radio. They decided that those creatures are interesting and began exploring space order to meet them. This is why the game classifies them as fanatic xenophiles. Unfortunately they were so ugly that other races began avoiding them. Fortunately the Blorg are also Militarists. You can find them saying stuff such as "This war is merely the beginning of a beautiful friendship." and "We feel like it's time to take the next step in our relationship."
The main appeal of Stellaris is building your own civilisation and seeing the story that builds itself through gameplay. These trailers don't really represent a pre-existing story but they represent things that could easily happen in your game. For example, your Star Trek comparisons were on point, but ones game could look like Warhammer 40k if they mess up lol
The storywriters for Stellaris are amazing. Play the game enough and you will find some awesome stories. The storyline for On the Shoulders of Giants origin had a plot twist that blew my socks off.
Once my fleet was clamped in the asteroid belt and they couldn't fly away, but 1 ship went into the thick of the opponents, thereby giving time to save the others, then I gave him the honour with tears while it was mercilessly dismantled for scrap metal. Press F to pay respect
Once saw Earth get blown up in a Stellaris play through I was doing. Reminded me that once I can afford to make multiple self sustaining fleets, I need to send them to the capitals of my allies
Ahh Stellaris the game where you can shape a star spanning civilization into anything your heart desire. Yet for some reason the correct answer to everything is extreme technological development, militarism and imperialism with a dash of xenophobia.
dlc Federation 2 trailers: the first as everyone is happy to make the Federation of their peoples. The second, as one race was used and she decided to take revenge.
Stellaris is where you make your own story... yeah there is lore and backstory(there is this one funny story about an eldrich horror beyond comprehension that claimed to be all powerful and demanded subservience and the soldiers that encountered him just gunned him down... I find it hilarious that there was absolutely nothing special about the guns soldiers or bullets) but from the moment you press play every event that plays out is your call kill everybody kill nobody stop "the crisis" become "the crisis"(yes there is an option to become the galactic crisis if you pick the right ascension skill) befriend everybody it's all up to you and if you don't like any of the preset factions you can just make your own with the faction creator(the first thing I did was recreate the reapers from mass effect)
The Nemesis is my favorite dlc as it let's you become the Crisis, a Galaxy level threat to the cosmos or the Custodian, A Guardian of the Galaxy. In my first game to completion I became a Nemesis early game and used my evil perks to enslave 3 nations near me before I reached Crisis status and the free people in the galaxy rallied against me. They managed to conquer all my systems and slaves until only my capital stood against the tides. It was the one region no force in the Galaxy could breach as my doomsday device was being built. They couldn't stop me and the game ended with me ascending to God hood and transforming the entire Galaxy into a series of Black Holes. All the stars flicker out, the world's shattered, and only the void left behind as I invade another dimension as a godlike being. Victory!
Stellaris is all the major Sci Fi settings stuffed in a blender and pureed together. There's Star Trek, if you want it. And Star Wars. And Terminator. And The Matrix. And Warhammer. Pick a franchise you'll see something of it in there. Pick whatever characteristics you want from your favorite interstellar nations and put them against some randomly generated ones or your friends favorite star empires and see who survives, who allies with who, who goes to war, fight off space monsters, swarms of biological doom ships, robot hive minds, and creatures from other realities. The story is the one you want to tell... With some scripted curveballs to keep things interesting.
It's fun when you can roleplay as a villain in the game. Like a cross-dimensional entity whose plane of existence intersected with our galaxy on a planet with a long dead species. Using its influence, it possessed the corpses of the species and revived their technology to spread through the galaxy as an empire known as the Soul of the Soulless. As it spreads through the galaxy, it destroys all life it encounters to raise their corpses into vessels to further spread its reach amongst our stars.
Song the Toxoids listen to is "Banging on a Trash Can." >.> Paradox has a whole video of that song and it was partially heard in the Toxoid reveal trailer.
I'm so happy to see this game finally getting the attention it deserves! In a nutshell you start in a system and can explore the galaxy as a civilization. You can create an army and destroy the other AI/players (if you're in a multiplayer match). Or you can join a galactic senate, do politics, and be bored for most of the game! ...So yeah it's basically Star Trek the game
Theres is a lot of references to science fiction and scientific fantasy midia in this game, so much that you could consider this game just a big homage to a entire genre.
The "crisis" mentioned is a galaxy destroying force. The one portrayed in the trailer would be one of the empires that were in the game from the start, building an Aetherophasic Engine with dark matter to destroy the galaxy. The others are extradimensional invaders, a devouring swarm, or a rogue AI that can take control of the robots in the galaxy.
Stellaris is a grand strategy game where you play as an "empire", you try to explore, expand, make alliances or conquer your way to survival and prosperity, you play against many other ai controlled empires. Each trailer was for a different dlc. Apocalypse is about the planet destroying superweapons called the colossi and is a warfare rework, the trailer depicts the United nations of earth trying to stop an invading alien fleet led by a colossus, they fail and the planet is destroyed. Federations is about forming supernational alliances that bond several empires close together, in this trailer an empire is a member of a hegemony federation or a vassal, they are quite discontent and ally with someone else to get their freedom, they succeed by the use of a juggernaut, a supermassive battleship and appear to subjugate their old overlords. Nemesis adds the ability for a player to become the crisis, in stellaris there is a thing called a late game crisis, a series of events at the end of the game that is designed to force the galaxy to work together to destroy it, it is a total war that the player spends the entire game working towards beating and this dlc allows a player to become one, it gives access to these massive cube ships called "star eaters" which destroy solar systems, sort of like a super colossus, this dlc also adds the galactic custodian who can be elected by the galactic community to lead the galaxy against the crisis, in this trailer a crisis empire destroyed a system so emergency measures were used to elect a custodian to fight the crisis, another trailer shows that they win and after a period of peace the custodian doesn't step down and instead forms the galactic imperium which sparks a civil war. Toxoids is a species pack that just adds a new type of race, it also adds an origin about a toxic god, its not as big as the others
'Did she independence day-ed herself to save everybody?' No, we sacrificed our diplomatic standing by launching the collossus, in order to purge those Xeno scums to save everyone from Xeno infestation- (inaudible)
Some details: There are other trailers: Utopia, Aquatics, then after this video came out, First Contact (kicking out a wage-slaving megaconglomerate), and Galactic Paragons (Meeting new legendary leaders) You watched "Nemesis episode 2", ep 1 being "Something blew up a star" and ep 3 being "The Custodian became a Galactic Empire and rules in perpetuity, a rebellion forms". Stellaris throws events at you (some randomized, some one pick out of 3, some for sure happening) and it's up to the player to choose how to handle them. The first few games the opposition will seem daunting and nigh-unbeatable, but as you learn the game, you'll be better prepared to face threats. For instance: One of the A.I. had gone down the "blow up the galaxy" path, everyone else had risen up against them, but only I had enough fleet power to stop them. They brought their star killer (the purple cube) to one of my sector capital and were about to cripple my economy (I guess the billions of dead would also be very bad), so I diverted 2 large fleet to stop them. The cube was 95% charged when my fleets engaged it, and so this was the first major victory against that Crisis, which would see their doomsday device destroyed and their populations enslaved by me (I didn't say I was playing a good guy, only that I'd like to not get blown up).
Stellaris, is a combination between, Star Trek, Star Wars, Warhammer 40k and numarus hypothesis to what our future in the 2nd and 3rd Filter would look like. Please look at more of the DLC trailers.
YESSSSSS I was waiting for you to do this one, I absolutely love the story building and the music is phenomenal. Definitely a fun one to get in and learn through trial and error
Oh Stellaris is very Star Trek. Arguably it draws the most from Trek, but it also takes inspiration from a wide array of space operas, like Star Wars, 40K, etc.
Stellaris is one of those games that have a GIANT learning curve but it’s so fun. You can play meta or just play anything you want. You can create any empire you desire and play.
Each play through of Stellaris creates an organic story more than the game having a predetermined story. It is one of my favorite things about the game. I have even used it to create settings for RPGs with friends because it creates an amazing and dynamic world. Plus the soundtrack is absolutely amazing. You should watch some play throughs to really see what I mean. I am doing one with the United Nations of Earth right now.
Is your Commonwealth of Man alive and well, or did the Ulysses end in failure? I hope you got a full colony out of the ship that went to the star system next to your home world.
@@DomR1997 Which game? 😜 In the one I based an RPG on, yes the Commonwealth is alive and well. Game is based on a colony in the system with the Enigmatic Fortress and takes place around the mid-game crisis but is set in the UNE. In my current uploaded play through, the Commonwealth is struggling but my UNE is the strongest in the game economically and technologically, if not a significant military power.
Note here: The so-called Borg is just a superweapon used to kill entire star system. And even they are just one cog in the grand scheme - to blow up the galaxy to become god. And according to the game's description, it can be interpreted as true ascension or just collective suicide.
Oh, adorable reaction) love you expression. By the way, I am too has writed 3 book and now working about 4...sorry, my English is good only to kill with the enormity of its use...)
I honestly think that it's better that she, as a storytelling background-based reactor, is reacting to stellaris, a game with no story, because each trailer is a mini-story in its own right.
I would describe Stellaris as a grand strategy about every sci-fi story ever. From Star Trek to Star Wars, Mass Effect and so much more. Who and what are the good guys is entirely up to the story you want to tell. You can play as a sentient snail, mushroom, molluscoid, and many other things if you want with any ideology. You can become the guardian and protector of the universe, or the existential threat of it, or a massive mega corporation bent on profit above all else. You can enslave all other races, form an all inclusive federation and anything in between. You can destroy planets, collapse stars and terraform planets into Gaia worlds, or paradise. No 2 games are identical.
You see Star Trek because it’s a hodgepodge of SciFi. 40K influences, Star Wars influences. Star Trek, Dune, HP lovecraft, even sone Riddick that I noticed.
Always loved how cinematic Stellaris' trailers were. Much like everyone has already said, it's a game that gives you the tools to build the story of your very own custom made space-age race. From a pacifist dictatorship of lizards to a planet-scale cult of mollusk people. If you wanna check something as cinematic as this with an actual 'set' story, I'd recommend Frostpunk. It's about 5 or 6 small trailers and a sequel got announced not too long ago. (Bonus points: Bricky also made a couple of videos on this game
If it haven't been said already Stellaris is a strategy and civilization simulation style game that takes place on a galactic scale. Your able to play a massive verity of races and civilizations including the ability to make one yourself. Those civilizations can have different ideologies and systems of government. Your objective is to thrive on the galactic stage against (or with) many other player or computer civilizations, with everything from diplomacy to war and federations.
I've always heard it pronounced as "Stell-Are-Iss" if that helps. And the purple cubes are actually ships called Star-Eaters. Because in this game near the end of the game there's always a crisis that arises that tries to wipe out all life that everybody needs to work together against, but with the Nemesis DLC, they give you the option to become that crisis yourself, and construct ships to eat stars and gather dark matter so you can tear apart reality and detonate every star in the galaxy in order to ascend to godhood at the cost of literally every single star, planet, and living thing in the galaxy except your own people. This game mostly involves making your own story as you watch events in the galaxy unfold over the course of around 300 years, but there are some set stories that you should look up if you're interested in the game's writing. I would look into Stellaris Precursor Stories if you want some interesting stories of great galaxy-spanning civilizations that grew, reached their apex, shined in their golden age, and then came crashing down.
I’ve played Stellaris for over 6.5 years, more than 3000 hours so far. In my current game, begun earlier today, I’m playing as a Corporation, starting as a species of rock people (Lithoids, likely silicon-based life) and with a strong tradition for long-distance trade since ancient times (the Silk Road Origin from a mod). These Lithoids are very charming and service-oriented and good at trading, so my planets have excellent high-quality services, and we even produce Food for our increasing population of carbon-based immigrants (for some weird reason, they don’t enjoy eating Minerals, apart from very limited quantities of a particular salt which they mix in with their “Food”). We’re swimming in money (Energy Credits), recently we won the right to have the Galactic Market placed in our capital star system, and we have 4 Branch Offices on foreign planet (one good and one really good... and two not-so-good, although they might improve). We have explored the galaxy widely, with many scientist-explorers now old and very skilled (carbon-based life forms are so short-lived; they usually die before they manage to become really good at anything), and we own probably 60-70 solar systems (in a 600 system galaxy), and have enclosed about 20-25 more systems that others can’t easily claim ownership of, or that are adjacent to entities that won't become extroverted and expansionist until much later (Marauders and Fallen Empires). A bit over a decade ago, I accidentally started a Trade-based Federation with the wrong guys. I had met some easy-to-get-along-with guys (either Erudite Explorers or Federation Builders, friendly and science-oriented types) and also some Democratic Crusader Space Dwarves that initially didn’t like me (a Corp is similar to an Oligarchy, as they see things, although they do hate Dictatorships and heriditary Empires more), so I had to allocate many of my Envoys to sweet-talk the Dwarves, and also bribe them with lots of Energy Credits, before they warmed up to me. When I finally got the ability to create a Federation, I proposed it to the Dwarves by accident, instead of to the likeable guys (I particularly like the part where they don’t obsess endlessly over silly voting stuff) and the Dwarves said yes. Then I realized my error! The Dwarves were actually willing to let the nice guys get Association status with the Federation, after a while, but they will not vote to let them join to become actual members, so I’ll have to take control of the Federation once I become powerful enough, so that I can limit that silly “voting” thing, and eventually end it completely. But it’s going pretty well, my Federation is levelling up and getting more bonuses (that’s also why dissolving it and forming a new one is bad; it might make the Dwarves angry at me, cause them to remember that I’m not actually a proper Democracy and so they ought to crusade on me, and a new Federation also starts at 0 XP, and it takes at least 150 years to reach level 5!), although some of the bonuses goes only to the President, and initially that’s a rotating position. I’ll fix that problem once I become able to (better methods of determining who gets to sit in the President's chair is usually a level 3'ish thing, so about 20-25 more years, although I'm more familiar with Research Federations and how to take over full control, than I am with Trade Federations and their specific mechanics). I also recently lost my pet giant space amoeba, Bubbles, when she was helping me fight some asteroid monsters that were preventing me from mining a lot of yummy Minerals. I had sent in a small force of 30 Corvettes, in advance with Bubbles following, but the space battle wasn’t going well at all, and so I decided to click retreat and… no more Bubbles. Which ties in with my biggest problem: I haven’t yet drawn the Tech card that lets me build a Fleet Academy to start newly built ship with some XP (giving +10% damage), and for this reason I’ve been reluctant to build a lot of warships. Usually I’ll build only 12, 15, 16 or at the most 20 Corvettes, sometimes as few as 10, and then I wait until I get the Academy before building up a proper fleet. So now I’ve been stockpiling Alloys, while sciencing hard both on my capital and on a newly colonized Relic World (most of my bureaucrats are now on a planet of their own, doing lots of paperwork to advance the political development of my Corporate empire, although the capital has partly switched over to Trade (5 Merchants!) because I wanted to win the Galactic Market, and I think I kinda like it that way). Once the Academy is operational, I’ll build a large fleet, I’ll take my delicious asteroids back from those horrible space monsters (their lack of respect for corporate property offends me profoundly!). Then no one will dare to declare war on me or on any of the members of my Federation, and once the End Game Crisis occurs, 150 or so years from now, I'll be very ready to rock and roll.
6:22 robots CAN be sentient. Stellaris is basically a universe simulator, which predefined/randomized empires spawn into, including yours. How their culture and technology develops from there on is up to you. Your empire could be one that is born as a hive mind of insectoids that mutates all others into its own specise. A rogue skynet left behind after its creators fell. A theocratic empire of avian creatures that might end up evolving into psychic, and then ethereal beings. A humanoid republic that goes deep into high technology, develops sentient machines and ultimately transfers its own consciousness into immortal machine bodies. A trader collective that lobbies its way into running a galactic federation. A species of undead creatures with mechanically revived bodies, operating as a cult to bring more of the living into unlife. Then imagine all of these bumping into each other in a galaxy filled with even more dangerous secrets, and playing out like 500 years of history between them. The possibilities are basically endless.
From "Suffer not the Xenos!" to "Lets all be friends!" - everything is possible. The problem is, will the galaxy agree with your approche? I once started a game where i swore to play nice, peacefull ... fanatic purifier swarms + robots everywhere. By the begining of the midgame, they where all that was left - and me. I had to purge the galaxy to live. I started as a fantical peacfull democracy and ended as a fantical militaristic one ... fun times.
I'm so happy to see you reacting to these trailers, Stellaris is one of my favorite strategy games! I highly recommend the Stellaris: Nemesis Release Trailer, its a bit longer than the Nemesis reveal trailer you watched in this video and it tells a great story in only a few minutes. As for the game itself, its a giant hogepodge of just about every work of Science Fiction out there, in the early game you spend a lot of time exploring and sending scientist out to learn new things in a very Star Trek manor. It then evolves into more of a political game with more Star Wars or Warhammer 40k elements depending on what other empires are generated for the game.
Stellaris is very unique in it's world building and faction crafting. You can have anything from environmental peacekeepers to an authoritarian police state. There isn't a direct story perse, it's more the story that you tell through gameplay. It has a lot of Sci-Fi references and world building with aspects/ideas drawn from the more optimistic side of things in such as the likes of Star-Trek, to the most cynical and nihilist side of the genre ala Warhammer 40K.
Star Trek is one of the inspirations used in this game, but they've included references to every sci fi things they could possibly think of. The scene of them giving the custodians emergency powers is a directly reference to the scene of Palpatine getting the same and the Custodian can form the Galactic Empire after the crisis, complete with a rebellion forming. The Toxic Knight are chivarous, valiant knights, not really villains necessarily. They just happen to be a bit smelly and ugly, but that doesn't mean they aren't nice. The equivilant of the borg in this game are the Driven Assimilators, an empire type you can play as or against.
"I live for a good story". Yeah that's why I'm not recommending most of my favorite games because their trailers do not have that, at all. Sadly great gameplay doesn't make great narrative trailers. On the Star Trek front, people have edited this game so you can play in the Star Trek universe with it's ships, cultures etc.
Stellaris Invicta is a narrative video series by tye channel Templin Institution which is based on this game. You can see from a factions point of view and is a great reaction story wise.
*You* make the story for Stellaris. Take control of a civilization that has just figured out how faster than light travel works and explore. Soon you'll find that you're not alone, it's up to you how to deal with those contacts. The game ends when the entire galaxy is either allied to you, or part of your empire... Each has different traits to them that changes how the government runs things. Do you enslave people? what about robots? Is war a good or bad thing? are even biological? Is the government just a megacorporation? What about faith, how important is that? And depending on answers to those, other empires hate or like you, can't please everyone. But you can be hated by everyone... Eating other sapients or being skynet tends to do that. Are they evil? for you maybe... But they probably don't think so, they probably think you're the evil one.
Paradoxs divides its DLC into many categories Tox, Plantoid, Lithoid, Aqua, Nekroid, these are portrait packs (race appearance) it used to be a very cheap visual add-on but over time new packs started to add little options when building an empire or in the game and the old ones packs have been improved for free, now the genre pack is more a vision of artists and their ideas with a similar style. The game also has Story Packs, i.e. packs with many often unrelated events with similar themes and mechanical additions to the game. And the last type of DLC are a lot of add-ons whose presence can extremely modify the game in every degree. There is no rigid plot in stellaris, the plot is created during the game, some events repeat between many games, but usually something interesting and slightly different happens anyway. The races in the game are really a combination of many things. Like the visuals: The appearance of the race, (some appearances unlock unique options) the appearance of cities, ships, or the diplomacy window and the home world. Traits of the species selected from the pool of traits, you can add positive and negative ones, where positive ones reduce the limit of traits and negative ones increase it, there is also the ethics of the empire or Traits of the empire, the type of government and finally Origin. Together, this creates our race, which can be written a short story, then we start the game and once we create an alliance that will save the galaxy and another time with the same empire we will isolate ourselves from the rest of the universe. As in paper RPGs, the story happens in our head, the game gives us a piece of paper, some random colored pencils and draws a few things in random places and the players expand it with their ideas. There are also people who optimize the game by posing more challenges and ignoring the creation of the plot. Stellaris is for patient people, it's a slow game, people who like to create their own stories or love numbers and creating efficient cheese mashes of perfectly matched fragments. and that is Stellaris and that how you lost all your money for 6389326996 dlcs
There are Stellaris AAR's where people write stories based on each campaign they have had. There's some quite popular series of them on youtube. Right now i'm playing the Canthari Divine Empire, who are let's face it, the bad guys. A race of mushrooms from a planet where they evolved alongside another sentient species of mushrooms, and enslaved them. They're a religious slaver empire who has delved into biological engineering to sculpt slaves into particular roles, and terraforming each world into a verdant paradise planet. My remaining independent neighbors are a warlike genocidal empire who keeps launching wars of extermination everywhere, and an ancient and isolationist religious superpower who will sit there until one day they wake up very angry... but that's another day. The rest of the galaxy hates me, but the genocidal empire acts as a buffer state between me and their federations. I was booted out of the galactic community after a vote to ban slavery passed and I refused. As the rest of the galaxy has slowly united into federations, this has meant the genocidal empire calculates i'm the weakest target, and keeps launching itself at me in a fury. I keep managing to hold them off, but I can already see where this is going. If i'm not careful they will weaken the both of us enough for the federations to roll in and enforce their demands. It wouldn't be the end for me. They'd likely take a few key systems and force me to ban slavery, and the result would be I'd be able to join the federations... as they force me to smile... (The Canthari are a decadent and weak species in terms of negative traits, meaning they are biologically predilected towards slavery and become extremely unhappy if they have to perform menial labor and also aren't very good at it. I *could*, using my genetic engineering prowess, remove this... or I could RP it as a reason for the Canthari to be so stubborn about the whole thing.). I didn't mention it, but your previously designed species can turn up in campaigns if you enable it... one of the federations is led by my fox people... militaristic, expansionist, communist fox people. They are *extremely* unhappy with me due to their societal values, for obvious reasons.
You should watch more of these. Especially the aquatics ones. Also it's funny but the knights of the toxic god are good guys just worshiping the destructive entity.
Star Trek, cyberpunk, robot uprisings, any of your favourite authors, a Rutger Hauer memorial solar system... If a scifi fan can think of it, it's in this game.
"Are they the bad guys?" is sorta up to you in this game. If I'm playing - they are. All of them. They're like different species than me, can you imagine the audacity? Ngl tho, they're probably the bad guys if you're playing nice too, you just realize it when they discover that your species is quite tasty with some salad and a glass of red wine. Or if you have space oil.
There is one type of game that you've not shown/seen trailers for is an exploration/story game. Part of the reason is that it is very difficult to make a story trailer for an exploration game since usually you make your own story there and often there is no combat. I would like to suggest "Outer Wilds" - it is one of the best games of that genre. It has a very deep mystery and story behind it, but it is nearly impossible to tell that story without enormous spoilers. Basically, you are a member of an alien species that goes out into their solar system and tries to unravel the mystery of ancient alien ruins of a race that preceded them. I highly recommend that game whenever you decide to try playing a game. The game looks amazing and has an incredible story.
Stellaris is a game I can see you playing, then using what happens on a macro scale in the game as the background while your novel unfolds in a small part of the created galaxy. Be warned, you sink months into this game without noticing.
Stellaris is basically an amalganation of lots of science fiction from all origins, its basically a strategy game where you can roleplay how you'd run a stellar civilization, from politic, economic, science, diplomacy and military. It has plenty of references, from space marines, xenomorphes, gundam, clone troopers, etc. Even the patch names are a nod as they are named after science fiction authors.
The toxoids are playable species, there are others such as lithoids (silicon based guys that are made of rock) humanoids, arthropods, aquatics, even plantoids and depending on your policies yes you can be the bad guy.
Stellaris is an amazing game. Very deep and complex, and infinitely replayable.There isn't really an overall "story" that the game progresses, beyond what the player brings for themselves or they setup in pre-game settings. The game is within a genre called Real Time Strategy, often described as a 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) strategy game. These games are usually separated from each other by the type of setting you operate within (Historic, fantasy, sci-fi, etc) and the gameplay systems available to the player which dictate how you conduct the 4x aspects of the game, and of course visual and stylistic direction. Stellaris, for me, is one of the best examples of these games, and the depth of the gameplay systems available in even the base game is fantastic. There have been MANY expansions for the game that add new aspects to gameplay such as races and factions, victory conditions, or units to command. One of the most interesting aspects of even the base game was the political systems and empire management the player must engage with, which even includes concepts like gerrymandering planets or systems to prevent recently conquered locals or rival political ideologies from gaining power and influence within your empire, creating civil unrest to tear you apart from within. It's such an unusual and often overlooked aspect of these games, and really demonstrates the level of depth and intricacy of systems the developers pour into Stellaris. It will be hard to find more "story" driven content for this but the trailers all have some neat flair to them as they introduce new features or aspects to the game. One of my favorite trailers was the recent Stellaris: Toxoids Species Pack video, which shows a lighter side of the otherwise "very serious business" of Stellaris. Thanks for all you do and great reaction and insight!
In the game, you play through thousands of years of your nations life throughout it's time in space, starting from the beginning of its space travel, into exploring space, finding new planets, old space ships that enhance your research, expanding your colonized planets, and eventually, finding alien factions. Before starting you can choose your race, and what your race acts like (pacifists, xenophiles, xenophobes, materialists, militarists, and even a hivemind.) Your choice reflects on your peoples reaction upon finding intelligent alien life, and you can choose which direction to go as you play, if you're a militarist or even a xenophobe, you can choose to be hostile towards alien life as soon as you discover them. If you're a pacifist or a xenophile, you can choose to be friendly (hostile is still an option) and eventually, take the alien life into your nation. As you play you can finetune your nations wants, and even do a complete 180 from militarist to pacifist if you want, although many of your people will be very upset about it. In the Federations trailer, if after a thousand or so years, your federation has spread wide enough that it has actually absorbed other nations (vassals) into its federation, which is usually ruled with an iron fist, enemy nations can talk to the nation under your control, and they will work together to destroy you. On the other hand, if you're a more friendly nation towards others you can talk to oppressed nations, and work together to free them, or even take in weak, isolated nations and protect them from a stronger, more hostile force. after 2200-2500 years or so in the game, there will be MANY super power nations, at least 2 of them vying for control of the galaxy, they can be at odds, or friendly with each other, but either way, in that timeframe, a "Crisis" will occur across the entire galaxy, threatening every nation. This Crisis can be an alien, monstrous scourge, that appears almost out of thin air to eat any living things it can get to. (this crisis, like many others, come with warnings you receive throughout the game that warns you of its imminent arrival) The crisis can also be an extradimensional invasion, from beings made up of energy, you won't even know they exist until they attack, and the only warning you'll get is your systems telling you "a massive power surge is somewhere in the galaxy", but by the time you receive that message, the invasion has already begun, and with no prior warning, you'll definitely be unprepared. The crisis can also be an AI uprising, starting small you'll barely notice it, machine population that you and everyone else has made will slowly start to disappear, adding to the crisis strength, until it culminates into one big problem, the AI, titled "The Contingency" will take over planets, purging life wherever it goes, transforming uninhabited planets into hubs that create more machine enemies. Finally, in the Nemesis trailer, you get to see how the galaxy reacts to this crisis, only this time, the crisis is you, the player, effectively going to war with everyone that isn't your vassal at the same time, in order to destroy anything that isn't yours. Armed with a "Star Eater" you send this megastructure of a ship into a solar system, and cause its star to go supernova, obliterating everyone and everything inside the system (as seen in the trailer).
