To say Sword of the Stars 2 (SotS2) has had a troubled
release is an understatement. Developer Kerberous made a real impression with
their take on the Sci-fi strategy 4X sub-genre. So when the sequel was unleashed
on unsuspecting consumers (me) with more bugs than an Ant hill; it hit their
credibility and the goodwill they had with fans very hard.
On start-up you were greeted with barely functioning menus
and incomplete features. If you got a game running you’d need to pray to the
old gods and save regularly to avoid crashes ruining your fun. Alpha versions
of games shown by other developers at conferences have been more complete than
SotS2 at launch.
A year later, SotS2 is back with an enhanced edition.
Supposedly this is close to the version of the game developer Kerberous intended
to release. They certainly get a medal for effort as they could have just cut
their losses and run. Now there is new DLC including an extra faction and it’s
been added for free.
Sadly the game is still not quite up to standard when it
comes to setting up a multiplayer game. The menus are still tedious and feel unresponsive;
however the real killer is the long load times. So long I assumed my game had
crashed. Users have posted on forums that you have time to take a shower before
you’ll be playing.
Single player is now mostly functional, but this is the sort
of game best played with friends. The AI still aren’t the sharpest tools in the
box and only function as training opponents. It’s a shame that the sequel still
hasn’t achieved its full potential, as the original was an innovative. And
SotS2 builds on those features, in particular an expansion of the semi-random
tech tree. Rather than standard tech trees found in other games, SotS has a set
of core technologies that when researched, may branch out into other intriguing
systems and weapons. It’s carefully balanced to avoid a player lacking firepower
or key ship structures. And it adds uniqueness to each game, stopping players
from relying on set strategies.
Hopefully Kerberous will carry on polishing the game with
further patches to remove the remaining issues. But for now, my total playtime is
going to stay around the one hour mark and my go to game for the genre will
still be Endless Space.
