This has just came in. Stardock will release a DLC for its real-time space 4X game Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. It’s called “Forbidden Worlds” and will add new planet types, a planet specialization system, new technologies, planetary bonuses and additional Steam achievements.
Feature List:
- Four new planet types to colonize and exploit (Barren, Ferrus, Greenhouse, Oceanic), each created with beautiful high-res textures.
- New Planet Specialization System: Dedicate your worlds to either social or industrial output. Devoting your planet to social improvements will increase its population and culture, at the cost of trade income and ship production. Choosing an industrial path will limit your growth and culture, but make your planet a trading and ship building powerhouse.
- 15 new research subjects allow the races to conquer and expand onto the forbidden worlds.
- Discover 40 new planet bonuses during your exploration of the galaxy, unlocking the dark past of the Sins’ universe.
- Unlock five new Steam Achievements and display your mastery of forbidden space!
The new planet specialization system and the new planet bonuses sound particularly interesting. That should help increase depth and improve the role of planets further. The other features seem to be a bit more cosmetic though.
By the way, Stardock has released a beta patch (v1.50) for Sins: Rebellion in the beginning of May. According to Stardock, it should have addressed game balancing issues and improved the planet visuals, among others.
The Forbidden Worlds DLC will be available on GamersGate, GameStop, Steam and GameFly on June 5th for $4.99.
Subscribe RSS
24 Comments
Related Articles:
- Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion New DLC Stellar Phenomena
- Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion – First Trailer (Cinematic), Pre-Order Discount and Release Date “News”
- Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion: Beta Starts and Developer’s Video Preview. Leave Your Impressions…
- Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion Patch v1.1 Adds More Maps
- Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion Officially Out for the PC
Loading ...
Looks like Sins is trying to move more in the direction of a real 4X by enhancing the expand and exploit aspects. Bravo!
Sins will still be more RTS than 4X, but at least the franchise is going in a good direction.
This is what I’d wished Sword of the Stars had done: enhance the basic game with more colony development and exploration (ruins, tech bonuses, etc.) rather than recoding the game for eye candy leading to the SotSII disaster.
With time Stardock may merge the Gal Civ and Sins franchises resulting in a full-bodied 4X with turn-based grand strategy and realtime Sins-inspired tactical battles.
I can always dream!
It’s not so much the eye candy (graphics and programming are usually done separately), which is typically done by an art team as much as it was the programming and UI decisions. There were some pretty bad decisions made there. Plus it looked to me like it was overambitious and the QA was not done well.
Tiny fonts. Lots of tiny little icons on the screen.
Wow, shitposting on an article of a game you don’t even own, that’s low dude
What’s low is so many of these strategy games are unplayable unless you have the visual acuity of a 19 year old.
These companies are killing their own genre.
I’m with you. I’m in my early 30’s and I’m already finding that many games are difficult to read the fonts. It has as much to do with the font choice as it does the size.
Spectacles… bah, I’m getting old too.
Just pointing out a big flaw in many modern games is low? Small fonts is one of the biggest usability mistakes in UIs. Small fonts and blurry fonts.
The large resolution of the original image makes it look worse than it actually is. I have the vision of a 70-year-old, and I don’t have any problems with Sins.
The new specialization is cool but modders have had different planet types for years in the previous version of the game as well as Rebellion. Will it be worth the 5 bucks, time will tell…
I think stardock hates me. They release both Fallen enchantress and sins rebellion expansion on days I have assessments due :(
I really don’t know if this expansion will do good or ill. The price is cheap, but the features offered didn’t change much.
I don’t really see new types of planets as important, or the ability to specialize planet. If they made the specialization great (say, you are able to specialize in more types, such as fortress world, agri-world, pleasure world, mining world, etc.) maybe I will consider buying it.
Lastly, there are more aspects that could be fixed up in Sins than just giving us some aesthetic. How about giving more depth to exploration and colonization? Give us more ways to do battle, instead of pitting up massive fleets against other massive fleets.
Well, it’s not really an expansion but a DLC, which I often see (and I think it’s the common understanding) as tiny/small expansions. Of course, the opinions about this may vary.
The new planet bonuses should enhance the exploration side a bit.
Yes, I understand that it’s tiny expansions, hence the price is also tiny. But instead of dripping us with content, I would prefer that Sins just gave us a big expansion, which I don’t mind if priced higher.
I see Sins as a great game, but with not much way to play. Their Rebellion expansion has new type of ships and new factions, their Entrenchment expansion has space stations, and their Diplomacy adds depth in their diplomacy. I think three of them, although not expands the game much, is adequately expanding the way I play the game.
But I will still buy this one, though.
But DW : Shadows will come first in my priority :)
How would you compare rebellion itself? I thought it was very little content to be called an expansion and sold for $40. Just three or so new ships and all new factions.. which were identical to the ones already there apart from one or two techs.. sucked bad imo.
this DLC looks more interesting for sure.
Price-wise, I think Rebellion is not good also (I bought it long after it is released). But what I want to see from DLC’s or expansion is a new way to play, while that is give (in some extent) by the Rebellion.
According to my opinion, Stardock should just leave Sins for now, and build a new one, instead of introducing new DLC or expansion packs, which add nothing to the game.
Wait.. wtf!? DLC for an Expansion now? first time I seen this.
At least Sins will have slightly more background/story to it now, I was pretty hard pressed to care about the game after a fairly short while because there was just no flavour to the universe apart from what minute long intro videos gave us.
Rebellion is a standalone game building off the original Sins games and adding additional content. Do it’s DLC for a standalone game, not an expansion.
Standalone expansion is the term if you want to get all technical. It’s hardly a new game. And it’s still the first time I’ve noticed DLC for an expansion to a game, standalone or not.
Unfortunately, the developers are limited in terms of the art content they can add because they’re running up against the 2 GB memory limit on x86 systems.
If you try to code portable, a 64bit version shouldn’t be much of a problem. Of course if you never thought that your product will live into the 64bit age or that will target other platforms, you code is probably too much “optimized”.
This is one of my favorite games and so far I’ve played all DLCs so I’ll play this one also when my time allows it.
Who would pay for this when you can get it and much much more from any one of the several solid free mods out there already. Rebellion was pretty much a rip from existing mods too. Seems lazy to me.
I think the game has gone past it’s sell by date now and needs to move on with a sins 2 or something, and they could do with getting their space facts right and not have planets as systems i mean large maps have around 70 to 80 planets all orbiting a main star that you have to hyper jump too, that was a real immersion killer for me.