Distant Worlds: Universe

An exceedingly complex, infinitely rewarding space strategy game. It’s made me more excited about the genre than any other game of its kind since Galactic Civilizations II.

An already great game returns as one of the best space strategy games ever made.

Distant Worlds: Universe is a corker. But make no mistake: while it’s not as forbidding as some Grand Strategy games, patience and a degree of head-scratching will be required. But it’s worth the effort. It’s enormous, complex and – above all – fun.

It's a challenging and complex game packed with features that allows you to choose just how you want to play it, while accommodating a wide variety of play-styles and strategies.

A one-of-a-kind 4X, Distant Worlds blends epic scale and macromanagement. The Universe release doesn't bring a lot of new content, but is a nice wrap-up nonetheless.

While Distant Worlds may be a paragon of its style, I can only recommend it to a select few: those with beefy computers and plenty of time to really dig into the meat of this stunningly elegant and impressively wide-ranging bit of software.

Distant Worlds Universe is a gem. It is so vast and in the same time so simple to get into. I never played a game that can adjust to player in so many ways. If you have time and will you can micromanage everything, or you could let capable AI to do it for you. Sometime I play slowly and take care of my empire on every detail. Other times I just let AI to do most of it and play it like geopolitical strategy game. This game is certainly a gem.

There is most definitely a learning curve here, but this game is fantastic once you get over it! Look up some guides on how to start as pre warp and play manually. After that you will understand enough of about the game to set whatever you want to auto.

I'll toss in a bad review. This doesn't mean the game is bad! It means I had a poor experience with this game. The game is priced on steam likea tripple AAA game. 54,95 euro. I am a casual player, I work and in my spare time I enjoy space games. This means I have little time to do it properly. When I played the game I had to start with the turtorials, they do a very poor job of explaining the game to me. I was intimidated by the ammount of custimazation, menu's, options and so on. After a few turtorials, i knew the menu's but not how to play. For a 55 euro game I expect better. Sorry for me that isn't worth this price. Some may have more time then me, get through it and have a nice experience, I didn't.

As a newcomer to the Distant Worlds series I found myself baffled at how poorly the tutorial teaches you to play the game. It is extremely unfriendly and makes this overcomplicated game an annoyance to get started with. Being a lifelong fan of strategy, both real time and turn based, I must say that I find this game to be very overrated and poorly executed. The concept of the game is good - I am all for space exploration, diplomacy, colonization, war and everything good that should be included in a good Sci-Fi strategy game. That being said, I find that the gameplay of Distant Worlds: Universe is simply too understimulating and the real time elements, such as combat, are a joke. I am not even going to mention the graphics. TLDR: Distant Worlds: Universe is not worth the full price of 54,99 euros. The game is overrated and the good reviews it has received are a sign of a starving gaming community rather than a good game.

This is a very niche game exclusively for people with a masters degree in space 4x games and patience of a stone. The UI is unappealing, horrible and convoluted. mechanics are not explained at all. Too many elements to manage: ship fuel, private economy, myriad of obscure resources you need to manage. Every menu has like a hundred items of text and drop down menus. Most things automated but what's the fun of it?!? The gameplay is just frustrating and not fun! Did the developers ever hear a phrase: less is more?!?! Also even after fiddling with the resolution the text is almost unreadable which makes it even more difficult to look at all the convoluted screens. This game should only be for die hards. I'll stick to Stellaris which is much much more accessible and fun.