For millennia our race has developed, explored and battled for control of a planet. Now we turn our eyes beyond our own solar system, to other stars in our galaxy. New planets, new discoveries, maybe even new civilizations await us. And Paradox Development Studio, the masters of grand strategy, will be your guides on this new voyage.

With a dynamic decision system and a heavy emphasis on exploration and science teams, Stellaris gives you much more to research than bigger lasers or stronger hulls – though you’ll need those too. Space is very big, and your first step will be getting a grasp of just what is around you and how it can be best used for the benefit of your civilization.

Paradox Interactive announced The Machine Age, a new narrative-focused expansion for Stellaris, is coming to PC (Steam) on May 7,2 024.

Scientists have discovered advanced means to commune with the machine, enabling life to overcome the biological limitations of minds and flesh. The Machine Age begins a time of technical glory, but raises new ethical and social dilemmas. With those times of unleashed ambition, new threats will emerge, questioning the real meaning of life itself.

Ascend through technologies with The Machine Age new features:

• NEW ENDGAME CRISIS AND CRISIS PATH: Players will face a new synthetic threat in a brand-new Endgame Crisis, or will themselves become the threat for the balance of the universe in a new Crisis Path.
• INDIVIDUALISTIC MACHINES: Your machine empires are no longer limited to gestalt consciousness and can have individual personalities and more diverse stories and origins. Further customize your empire with 3 new Machine Ascension Paths.
• NEW SITUATIONS AND ADVANCED AUTHORITY SWAP: As you delve ever closer to the mind of the machine, you will have to face new challenges for your society. Every decision matters and the only certainty is that your empire will not be the same after its Ascension.
• 3 NEW ORIGINS
  • Cybernetic Creed: Your empire pursues a divine calling: the holy fusion of the body and cybernetics. Augmentation is worship.
  • Synthetic Fertility: Once a thriving society, a novel genetic disease leaves your empire unable to reproduce biologically. Digital salvation seems the only option to avoid extinction.
  • Arc Welders: Hailing from a world starved for space, a robotic society turns to the stars for resources. 

On top of that, The Machine Age includes new reactive portraits, 6 new Civics, 2 new mid-game structures (the molten Arc Furnace and powerful Dyson Swarm), new Population Traits, and 7 brand new music tracks for the best in synthetic beats!

Paradox also revealed that Stellaris Season 8 will deploy on May 7th for $39.99, offering players three major expansions, including The Machine Age.

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, 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

Thousands of planets populate procedurally generated star systems giving you the largest possible theatre for performing the emergent stories that Paradox has become famous for. Customize your ships, encounter unique randomly generated races, and participate in advanced diplomacy that would make Picard look like an amateur.

And all in a beautiful and evocative star map unmatched by anything we’ve made before.

• Behold the enormity of space with procedurally generated galaxies and an untold number of planets to explore.
• Encounter a myriad of wild, quirky, and dangerous alien races who may prove to be crucial trade partners or conquering forces hellbent on enslaving your civilization.
• Take on strategic space warfare and resource management to ensure the survival and advancement of your empire.
• Explore scientific anomalies and uncover technological wonders throughout the galaxy to utilize them toward your own gains.
• Govern your own fledgling empire and secure your power and agenda through manipulating internal policies, factions, traditions and more.

Stellaris is currently available on PS4, Xbox One and PC (Steam).