Paradox is bringing its hit grand strategy game Stellaris to the PlayStation 4 on February 26, 2019. The standard edition will go for a modest $39.99, while the deluxe edition will cost $59.99. The deluxe edition will entitle you to the Plantoids Species Pack, Leviathans Story Pack, and Utopia Expansion add-ons as soon as they are released.
We’ve wanted to see this game on the PS4 for a long time. This is the first time that a studio has attempted to convert the full grand strategy experience to something playable on a home console, and the folks at Paradox think that they have found the perfect balance in their controller mappings and UI designs to pull this off. So how does it work?
Stellaris Director Daniel Moregard offered an explanation on the PlayStation Blog.
Analog sticks move the screen around, with the center of the screen being the point you’ll be selecting, you can zoom in or out with the triggers and R3 switches between system view and galaxy view. There are a lot of menus and interfaces that come with Grand Strategy Games, and this sort of gameplay might not sound easy to manage on a controller, but you may be surprised at how natural the navigation of the redesigned menus feels.
There are indeed a lot of menus, which Paradox has discreetly tucked into the borders of the screen. An Empire Management menu hangs in a tab to the left, a Resources Bar is at the top, Time Control and Alerts are along the bottom, and the Empire Overview is to the right. Each of these menus can be enlarged and accessed with a tap of the d-pad.
Sounds pretty handy, right? If you love to game with your thinking cap on, and have been looking for a solid strategy game on PS4, check out Stellaris when it launches on February 26.