Stellaris' galaxy menacing Nemesis expansion comes to PC on 15th April and, as is the norm, it'll be accompanied by a free update for all players on the same day. In the run-up to next week's launch, publisher Paradox has now offered a quick taste of Dick, as the update is officially known, in a handy new video summarising the various changes it'll bring.

Stellaris' 3.0/Dick update (which, as with previous free updates, takes its name from a famed sci-fi author, in this case Philip K Dick), offers a number of notable reworks, starting with the game's First Contact system. Currently, the options players are able to select from when encountering a new alien civilisation for the first time have minimal impact on future relationships - something Paradox aims to remedy with Dick.

Come Stellaris 3.0, initial contact promises to be "more engaging and impactful", presenting players with more options and decisions to make across multiple stages, differing depending on whether their First Contact Protocol is proactive, cautious, or aggressive.

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Sci-fi strategy game Stellaris' latest expansion, Nemesis, will be making its way to PC on 15th April, and the Lithoids Species Pack is coming to PS4 and Xbox One on 25th March.

Nemesis, as its name suggests, finally lets Stellaris players properly embrace their dark side by giving them the opportunity to initiate a crisis. Usually these are late-stage events that mark the arrival of powerful AI forces who'll either perish in bloody battle or eradicate all known life, but Nemesis will let human players mastermind the galaxy's devastating denouement themselves.

First, however, they'll need to perform nefarious deeds and accrue Menace, which is used to ascend through the ranks of evil, eventually unlocking the Aetherophasic Engine - a doomsday device powered with the dark energy created by consuming the stars.

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Finally had enough of those pesky neighbouring empires in Stellaris and dreaming of a way to wipe the smug smiles off their faces once and for all? Then you might be intrigued by the sci-fi strategy game's next expansion, Nemesis, which finally gives players the ability to embrace their inner evil, rise up, and scrub the entire galaxy clean off the map.

Nemesis takes a familiar Stellaris end-game mechanic - in which the galaxy is plunged into crisis by invading AI forces who'll either perish in bloody battle or eradicate all known life - and switches it up so that players can become the source of the crisis themselves.

To reach that point, however, they'll first need to perform nefarious deeds and accrue Menace. This is used to ascend through the ranks of evil, eventually unlocking the Aetherophasic Engine - a doomsday device powered using dark energy that's harvested by eating the stars.

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Paradox Interactive's acclaimed 4X sci-fi strategy game Stellaris is expanding once more, this time with the new diplomacy themed Federations DLC, out later this year on PC.

Federations is Stellaris' fourth expansion (or ninth if you include the game's various Story and Species Packs), and aims to considerably expand the diplomatic options available in-game.

According to Paradox, players can "build up the internal cohesion of their Federations and unlock powerful rewards for all members", by taking advantage of Trade Leagues, Martial Alliances, Hegemony, and more. Additionally, the expansion introduces a galactic senate, able to vote on a wide variety of resolutions to drive legislative agendas.

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Microsoft has confirmed the latest batch of titles coming to Xbox Game Pass on PC - and while a few have been revealed previously, some new names, including sci-fi grand strategy game Stellaris, will also be making the leap to the subscription service before the month is through.

Alongside Stellaris, quirky (and tremendously entertaining) 60-second puzzle adventure Minit joins the Xbox Game Pass line-up on PC, as does F1 2018, a racer that Eurogamer's Martin Robison called "one of the very best F1 games to date" in his Recommended review last year.

There's more racing, albeit of a two-wheeled variety, courtesy of Lonely Mountains Downhill, and also heading to the service at some currently undisclosed point this month is Saints Row 4: Re-Elected, developer Volition's extremely silly superhero-themed open-world jaunt through an alien computer simulation, and "multi-layered" cyberpunk sci-fi thriller State of Mind.

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UPDATE 28/5/19: Sci-fi strategy game Stellaris' latest Story Pack DLC, the archaeology themed Ancient Relics, will launch next week, on 4th June.

The brisk version of the Ancient Relics' additions goes something like this: two new Precursor civilisations (the Baol and the Zroni) to uncover, new Ancient Relics providing "significant benefits" to your empire (either given as rewards or found by digging at archaeological sites), new Relic Worlds featuring guaranteed dig sites, new dig-related story missions, and the new Minor Artifacts resource.

The below video, however, details Ancient Relics' new features a little more thoroughly, and it'll only take four and a half minutes of your time.

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Paradox Interactive's celebrated sci-fi 4X strategy game Stellaris will be free to try this weekend on Steam, in honour of the game's third birthday.

Stellaris initially launched for PC on 9th May 2016, and so, in the name on timeliness, its free weekend is already underway. As of now, interested parties can download the base game from Steam for the temporary sum of nowt and set a course for galactic domination. Those unfamiliar with Stellaris' take on sci-fi strategy, incidentally, might find this brisk introductory video overview mildly illuminating.

The free weekend comes to a close at 10pm in the UK/1pm PDT on Sunday, 12th May.

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Paradox has unveiled MegaCorp, the latest expansion for its galactic grand strategy extravaganza, Stellaris.

MegaCorp is the third major expansion for Stellaris, following on from Utopia and Apocalypse, and is designed to enrich the economy elements of the game, "ushering in an era of prosperity and profit" as players establish their own corporate empire among the stars.

Budding CEOs can access a range of new business-orientated Civics, enabling them to, for instance, establish Branch Offices on planets within their empires where trade agreements are in place. This will add a portion of the planet's Trade Value to their own network.

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Eurogamer Recommended grand strategy game Stellaris is coming to console, to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. There's no release date but we do know Tantalus Media will handle the port. Tantalus previously ported Cities Skylines to console for Paradox.

Stellaris' eventual console arrival will apparently be the first time a grand strategy has been playable there - a grand strategy game being one which lets you do high-level, zoomed-out campaign strategising as well as on-the-ground, in-the-action battle management. Think of Total War or, indeed, Stellaris. How comfortable it will feel on thumbsticks remains to be seen.

Stellaris: Console Edition will come with version 1.7 of the game, and a Deluxe Edition will pack the Plantoids Species Pack, Leviathans Story Pack and Utopia Expansion.

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Publisher Paradox Interactive has announced Distant Stars, a new "discovery-themed" paid DLC story pack for its deep-space strategy extravaganza Stellaris.

Distant Stars will introduce fresh anomalies and storylines, focussed around encounters with "strange new beings in the uncharted depths of space". It will also include surprises "that may help or harm ambitious explorers".

Most notably, valiant adventurers can find and utilise an ancient gateway network that unlocks "a sealed path to a constellation outside our own galaxy". But, asks Paradox, "is this door holding something out, or keeping something in?" Whatever its secrets, speed is of the essence, as other empires across the galaxy are also racing to harness its powers.

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