Rimworld-inspired colony sim Stardeus gets a huge update representing a year's worth of expansion and revision, with new tools for evil AI overlords

1500 individual fixes, sayeth the dev

"Stardeus is in an early stage in terms of bulk and complexity, but it's already a pleasant blend of interesting ideas that generate a mostly relaxing vibe," wrote gallant star captain.exe Sin Vega in our 2022 analysis of Rimworld-influenced colony manager Stardeus. "One to watch for sure." Well, let it not be said that we weren't watching.

Stardeus has received a gargantuan early access update that has been "a year in the making," according to developer Kodo Linija. It's still a game about being an AI running a badly damaged interstellar colony ship in top-down view – sending drones to restore the damage, before waking the quarrelsome human popsicles from their slumber. But the new version introduces a quest system and a new opening tutorial chain, the ability to form alliances with other starfaring factions, the possibility of lifelong injury due to failed surgery, and the timely option to become an evil AI and mind-control your crew with beta waves, amongst other dastardly antics.

It introduces a new interface and a new ship aesthetic, a trust system that governs the odds of a mutiny, and a revised colonist skill system. There's also a freshened-up ground combat element that's now built around "cover, suppression, stuns and fleeing", and a new approach to space battles that's all about managing Flux generated when you fire weapons or take shield damage. The update notes on Steam tote more than 1,500 changes, with the dev enthusing that there is "hardly a system in the game that wasn't rebuilt, reworked or expanded".

I confess, I hadn't heard of Stardeus before. It sounds like fun, in the Dwarf Fortressian sense. The 1.0 rollout is due in "approximately Q1 2027".