Sins Of A Solar Empire Expands
In addition to further championing the cause of gamer's rights, Stardock today unveiled the first of several expansion packs for its best-selling and award-winning PC space strategy game, Sins of a Solar Empire.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment will be released beneath the light of a strange sun later in 2008 and will cost a mere $9.95 for purchase over Stardock's excellent and trail-blazing Impulse distribution platform.
Developer Ironclad Games has several expansions in the works, with Entrenchment being the first and largest - it will bring Starbase defense platforms for each race, which will be "extremely powerful and armored bases housing a variety of weapons and other upgrades capable of defending an entire planet." Cool beans. Also in the bag are mine fields and a subspace inhibitor platform (to slow down enemy ships, of course).
The other projects under development are two micro-expacks that add diplomacy features and new tech/ships, respectively.
Stardock's distribution model for these expansion packs is non-traditional and modular, meaning you won't need to accumulate all of them in order to enjoy the newness:
"Sins of a Solar Empire, which was already an amazing game experience, is getting some outstanding ways to conquer others or defend your race," said Stardock CEO and President Brad Wardell. "We're excited about being able to deliver expansion packs in a more modular way than traditionally. Now players can pick and choose what features they want rather than paying a higher price for a larger expansion pack which may have features they aren't interested in."
Woot - my only complaint, and it's a very large one, is the total absence of a campaign or story mode in a game founded upon a rich and excellently detailed universe. The in-game history is so compelling that it's a shame to see Ironclad working exclusively on multiplayer features. I'm such a big fan of the game that I want to go out and write a "Sins" epic space opera myself, just to avoid seeing such great source material squandered. Ya hear me, Ironclad?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sins of an 'Expanded' Solar Empire
- Multiple Expansion Packs Announced, First Pack Set for Late 2008 -
Plymouth, MI - August 29, 2008 - Stardock announced today that the award-winning and best-selling PC strategy game, Sins of a Solar Empire, will feature several micro-expansions over the next year. The first expansion pack, Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment is currently in development and will be released late 2008 for $9.95 via Stardock's Impulse digital distribution platform (www.impulsedriven.com).
Developed by Ironclad Games, Sins of a Solar Empire is a real-time strategy game that adds an extreme amount of depth normally only seen in turn-based releases. One of the highest ranking real-time strategy games of 2008, the title has sold over half a million copies and won several Editor's Choice awards.
Specifically, Entrenchment promises to bring fans a Starbase defense platform for each race (extremely powerful and armored bases housing a variety of weapons and other upgrades capable of defending an entire planet), turret upgrades for each race to make them more powerful (not only stronger than the current versions, but also upgradable with long-range weapons), mine fields and a Subspace Inhibitor platform that will slow enemy ships within its range.
"Sins of a Solar Empire, which was already an amazing game experience, is getting some outstanding ways to conquer others or defend your race," said Stardock CEO and President Brad Wardell. "We're excited about being able to deliver expansion packs in a more modular way than traditionally. Now players can pick and choose what features they want rather than paying a higher price for a larger expansion pack which may have features they aren't interested in."
Ironclad has two additional micro-expansions in development as well. One of which adds new diplomacy features to the game and another that will add new technologies and ships.
The expansions are being developed to prevent fracturing of the multiplayer community. If both players have a given expansion pack installed, the features are available, but if one does not, the expansion pack features are disabled for that particular game.
The expansions will be available digitally from Stardock on the Sins website as well as via Impulse, Stardock's next-generation digital distribution platform.
Visit http://www.sinsofasolarempire.com for more information, updates and pre-order information.
To learn more about Stardock, please visit www.stardock.com.
About Stardock
Stardock is one of the world's leading developers and publishers of PC games and desktop software. Its PC games include Sins of a Solar Empire, the highest rated and best selling PC strategy game of 2008 as well as the critically acclaimed Galactic Civilizations series. Its desktop software includes Object Desktop, WindowBlinds, and a host of other programs for customizing the Windows experience. Learn more about Stardock by visiting www.stardock.com.
###
tiny dancer
Posted to Video Games on 29 August 2008
Other stuff like this: entrenchment, expansion pack, ironclad games, sins of a solar empire, stardock
