Stellaris Standard Edition

Stellaris is Paradox's science fiction grand strategy game, and it starts earlier than most of the genre: you design a species, pick its ethics, government and FTL method, then push out from one home system into a randomly generated galaxy that can hold up to a thousand stars. Early play is exploration and survey work, with anomalies and archaeology sites hiding stories that pay off dozens of hours later. Then borders meet, and the game turns into diplomacy, espionage, federations, war goals and the slow business of running an empire whose sectors increasingly want to run themselves. Crises arrive late and are meant to be survived rather than won cleanly. Runs in real time with speed control, and supports large multiplayer games. The base game gives you the full empire designer, the randomly generated galaxy, all core mechanics and the free updates that have accumulated over the years, including the reworked economy and unity systems. Every expansion and species pack is optional and sold separately, so this is where every playthrough starts — and it is a complete strategy game on its own without any of them.