Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn DLC adding proper robot civs
I'm a mechanical man
It's robo a go-go with the next Stellaris [official site] DLC, Paradox announced today. Due later this year, the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack DLC will let players start as mechanical men, with new events, ships, traits, story beats, and so on. The spacefaring strategy game already lets players transcend their flesh and become synthetics deep down a tech tree but ick, who wants to have ever been meat at all? Shameful.
As is customary, a big free update will launch alongside this paid expansion. Update 1.8, nicknamed 'Čapek' after the Czech writer who popularised the word 'robot', brings changes to habitability, hive minds, and more.
Paradox load these bullets into the cylinder of their marketing gun and fire it into the air while screaming "SYNTHETIIIIC DAAAAAAWN!":
- You, Robot: Play Stellaris as a customized robotic civilization, complete with a series of robotic portraits for science robots, worker robots, and more
- AI, eh? Aye!: Follow new event chains and story features to lead your robot race to greatness as an intergalactic AI empire; pursue mechanical perfection in the stars
- Rise of the Machines: Oppressed synths may rebel against their masters and form new empires -- or you may even discover a fallen synthetic civilization deep in space
- Digital Enhancements: New synthetic race portraits, and expanded voice packs for VIR
Paradox haven't announced a price yet. The Leviathans Story Pack costs £7.49 so I'd expect a similar price.
As for Čapek, Paradox have written plenty about its changes over recent weeks. The full patch notes aren't settled yet but you can read about expanding habitability and improving terraforming, adding genemodding templates to make genetic manipulation less of a faff, combat rebalancing including letting missiles retarget, hive mind improvements, different models of robots, and new narrator voices for different ethics.
They've also written about the new synthetic Fallen Empire coming in the expansion, the unpredictable Ancient Caretakers.
I'll be glad to have a reason to return to Stellaris. I do enjoy it but too many paths end up essentially the same, stories become familiar after a few games, and too few surprises pop up. Robofun should draw me back for a bit.