Paradox Interactive and Tantalus Media first revealed their plans to bring its grand strategy game Stellaris to PS4 and Xbox One back in August. It was definitely an interesting announcement, as grand strategy games can be fairly technically demanding an feel like they wouldn’t play well without a keyboard and mouse. Even with those hurdles to overcome, Paradox Interactive is still confident in porting the game to consoles, revealing that Stellaris: Console Edition will be releasing in Q1 2019.
A new trailer was release for the game today as well, showcasing both cinematics and some brief glimpses at gameplay. While it remains to be seen how well Stellaris: Console Edition plays on a controller, it does look like these versions of the game will retain all the features grand strategy players fell in love with on PC.
Paradox Interactive has previously stated that Stellaris: Console Edition is based on version 1.7 of the PC game, and will be receiving the Planetoids Species Pack, Leviathans Story Pack and Utopia Expansion as DLC post-launch. This is definitely a title I’d need to get my hands on to see just how well it has made the jump to consoles.
While strategy games have proven to be somewhat comfortable on mobile phones and the Switch with touch screens, controllers inherently have less buttons and are less precise than a keyboard and mouse. Managing some parts of grand strategy games quite hard with a controller at first glance, so hopefully Tantalus Media is able to find a smart solution to these tough design problems
You can see Stellaris in action on consoles in its first gameplay trailer below. Stellaris: Console Edition will launch sometime during Q1 2019 for PS4 and Xbox One.