Sins of a Solar Empire 2 Review

ign.com:

I have played Sins of a Solar Empire 2, and I am poorer for it. This sequel is extremely similar to the original real-time 4X strategy game from 2008 (including a lot, but not all of the content from its 2012 Rebellion expansion) with nicer graphics and needed engine improvements. That alone is more than welcome for a game that’s had such staying power, and revamps to its well-differentiated and complex factions give them even more depth to explore. However, the version that stealth-launched out of early access on the Epic Games Store feels rougher and less complete than a lot of games when they launch into early access. Expanding my empire, conquering planets, and watching my fleets do battle with rivals and bomb their planets to ash did grow on me a bit once a friend and I worked together and eventually taught ourselves its ins and outs, but getting to that point was so much less fun than it should’ve been that any joy was sucked out of it like atmosphere through a hull breach.

For context, I played Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion a fair amount a decade ago, and have been playing 4X and real-time strategy games habitually long before and since. And yet, after buying Sins of a Solar Empire 2 and jumping in, I felt completely lost. There are no tutorials for this enormously complex game (outside of a website with a quick-start guide that’s barely more than a glossary), and the in-game instructions you do get for things as relatively simple as climbing the research tree to unlock essential technologies often send you on wild goose chases through the confusing interface. For every ounce of interstellar entertainment I managed to laboriously mine like metal from an asteroid, there was always some major headache to accompany it. Between that sort of thing, bugs, grayed-out options in the map creation interface, and a lack of a server browser to play with people you don’t know, it clearly isn’t a finished product.

There is no way to talk about how Sins of a Solar Empire