Stellaris Dev Diary #340 - A Release Date, New Crisis and introducing Season 08

Hi everyone!

I wanted you to be the first to be introduced to the new End-Game Crisis coming in The Machine Age, but it seems that a Fallen Empire’s fleet beat us to it, let’s see how they’re doing…



The Machine Age is Nearly Here - Announcing Stellaris: Season 08​
As mentioned at the end of the video, The Machine Age will be arriving on Tuesday, May 7th.

It is now available for pre-purchase for $24.99 or regional equivalents.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2840100

But there’s more - based on the popularity of Crusader Kings’ Chapter III, we’ve decided to celebrate our eighth anniversary by offering a similar expansion pass including all of the major Stellaris releases of the year for $39.99, which comes out to over a 20% discount.

There’s a chance that we might experiment with some other ideas that might or might not come out later this year, but Stellaris: Season 08 will include all of the major releases of 2024.

Players that have a Stellaris: Expansion Subscription will have access to Rick the Cube and the rest of Stellaris: Season 08 (as they release), while their subscription is running. (As with all DLC purchases, remember that while your subscription is running you count as owning everything so storefronts will block your purchase. If you are a subscriber that wants to buy Season 08, you will need to let your subscription lapse to make the purchase, after which you can re-subscribe.)

Rick the Cube is a Machine portrait. Creating an empire using this portrait will require the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack (or The Machine Age, when it releases). Synthetically ascending (requires Utopia) will allow you to choose the Rick the Cube portrait without Synthetic Dawn, or without any DLC it can be used by researching and building robots and robomodding.



Stellaris: Season 08 includes the following content:​
Day 1 Unlock: Rick The Cube Species Portrait Initially announced in Stellaris Dev Diary ∛338[forum.paradoxplaza.com], Rick the Cube is no joke.

Unlocked immediately with the purchase of Stellaris: Season 08, this Machine species portrait is a cube and definitely not a human. Behold those lines, those flat sides, those runes, and tremble before their ineffable polygonal nature.

Stellaris: The Machine Age (Major Expansion - coming May 7 2024 - $24.99)
You’ve all been reading these dev diaries and thus should have a good understanding of what The Machine Age includes, but they’re making me write it again.

The Machine Age is the heart of the Stellaris: Season 08. This major expansion allows you to explore cyberpunk fantasies of technological augmentation and digitalization of consciousness, expanding the possibilities offered in game by the Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension Paths. You can address the moral and social challenges that communing with the machine brings to your space-faring empire, and face a new threat looming over the galaxy… or become a new threat yourself, as you tear through time and space to shape reality to your image.

The Machine Age expansion includes:​

• Individualistic Non-Gestalt Machine Empires​
  
• Gestalt Machine Intelligence Empires (also unlocked by the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack)​
  
• Three new Origins​
  • Cybernetic Creed​
    
  • Synthetic Fertility​
    
  • Arc Welders​
• Civics​
  
  • Guided Sapience​
    
  • Natural Design​
    
  • Obsessional Directive​
    
  • Protocol Droids​
    
  • Tactical Cogitators​
    
  • Augmentation Bazaars (Requires Megacorp)​
• Two Mid-Game Structures​
  
  • Arc Furnace​
    
  • Dyson Swarms​
• Three New Machine Ascension Paths
  
  • Modularity
    
  • Nanotech
    
  • Virtuality
• Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension (also unlocked by Utopia)​
  
• Exploration of the effects of the cyberization or synthesization of society, with Advanced Government Forms for those who complete it.​
  
• New Species Traits for Cyborgs, Machines and Robots​
  
• Cybernetic portraits that change based on advancement through cyberization​
  
• Synthetic portraits with both organic and synthetic variants that changed based on synthesization, usable by either organics or machines​
  
• Two new Shipsets, Diplomatic Rooms, and City Sets​
  
• 7 new synthetic and cybernetic inspired music tracks​
  
• A new Become the Crisis Path​
  
• …And a new End-Game Crisis.

Stellaris: Cosmic Storms (Mechanical Expansion - coming Q3 2024 - $12.99) A strange galactic phenomenon has been observed in the galaxy, Cosmic Storms have begun sweeping through the systems of the galaxy. Check the forecast, prepare your Empire to weather this new threat, and leverage the possibilities these storms give you as they weaken your enemies.

Discover multiple types of Cosmic Storms that travel from system to system in the galaxy, wrecking havoc (or bringing powerful bonuses) on empires throughout the galaxy. Discover new technologies allowing you to forecast, and influence the direction of these storms, and play with new civics and a new origin featured around taking advantage of this mysterious galactic phenomenon.

Includes:

• 8 Galactic Storms with unique visual effects
  
• 1 Origin
  
• 2 new Relics
  
• 2 new precursor story arcs

Stellaris: The Grand Archive (Story Pack - coming Q4 2024 - $14.99) The Grand Archive is vast and full of wonders, and it's up to you to fill its halls with the records of the unique lifeforms and marvels you meet in the galaxy. Construct a new megastructure, and collect exotic specimens from your space-faring adventures, what military applications might await you, and what unique life forms might you construct from the specimens you find is up to you.

In the Grand Archive Story Pack you will collect specimens from throughout the galaxy, and discover technologies allowing you to genetically modify the galaxy’s indigenous space fauna, and then breed these creatures to further your own agenda.

Includes:

• A new Megastructure: “The Grand Archive”
  
• 200 specimens to collect
  
• A vivarium with space fauna capturing mechanics
  
• Hatchery starbase and cloning facilities to alter space fauna and use them as fleets
  
• 2 new types of spaceborne fauna - Voidworms and Cutholoids
  
• A new Mid-Game Crisis - the Voidworm Plague
  
• 2 Origins
  
• 2 Tradition trees

Stellaris: Season 08 and The Machine Age are both available for pre-purchase now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2863190
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2840100

Inspiration Behind the Crisis ​
Not every existential threat is overtly hostile, or even desires you harm.

In house, we’ve always loved our Rogue Servitors - the idea of a powerful AI that somehow turns on its creators, not in a violent or destructive way, but out of a misguided sense of purpose. We wanted to do something that felt both apocalyptic but not inherently militant, a crisis that wasn’t exclusively about shooting something on first contact. The first phases of this Crisis are decidedly non-combat.

How might an all-powerful being react to the directive to 'eliminate suffering?' Obviously, because this is Stellaris, our antagonist is going to take her answer way, way too far. What happens next is up to the player. Will you try to oppose her directly, or play the part of a loyal pupil?

This all came together as a terrifying, driven entity. There are some very obvious spiritual and historical influences in her design, and philosophical ideas regarding the nature of suffering and awareness are woven through her narrative.

Expanding upon some of the interactions originally created in Galactic Paragon, all of your conversations with the Synthetic Queen will have full, generated audio voice-overs.

Our Audio Director, Ernesto López, has a bit to say about how we went about it:

Designing the voice for the Synth Queen was an entertaining adventure. While we had access before to use Advanced Text to Speech to do prototypes and characters, this time, we tried to use the tool like a music synthesizer. We created multiple takes, arranged them, and compiled them, creating a good result. We were excited to create an AI character with an AI voice since this would allow some creative leeway. If the result felt odd or non-human, that could fit the character perfectly, but also when the results had specific emotion, that helped us to create what we believe is a fantastic character and an enjoyable and exciting narrative arc for players that have been waiting for a new and exotic crisis.

We’re extremely happy with how this all came out, it takes encounters with her to another level.

The Synthetic Queen gave us an opportunity to build upon existing stories of the Fallen Empires, answering some more questions about the ancient past.

We don’t want to spoil too much about the story, but we’re really looking forward to seeing you meet her.


The Synthetic Queen’s ships​

Next Week ​
In next week’s dev diary we’ll be looking at the Become the Crisis path in The Machine Age, Cosmogenesis.

See you then!