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Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL

Slightly better than it was before, Sword of the Stars II is finally playable, but still hobbled by bizarre design decisions.
Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL Game Cover
43%Game Brain Score
gameplay, graphics
stability, optimization
40% User Score Based on 747 reviews
Critic Score 55%Based on 1 reviews

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PCWindows
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Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL Game Cover

About

Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL is a single player and multiplayer strategy game with a science fiction theme. It was developed by Kerberos Productions and was released on November 29, 2012. It received neutral reviews from both critics and players.

"Sword of the Stars II: The Lords of Winter - Enhanced Edition" offers turn-based strategy and real-time skirmishes in a vast galaxy. The Loa, a new playable race of vengeful artificial intelligence, can shape-shift their fleets and build colonies on rocky planets. This edition includes the base game, the End of Flesh expansion, and all previous DLCs .

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Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL screenshot
Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL screenshot
Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL screenshot
Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL screenshot
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40%
Audience ScoreBased on 747 reviews
gameplay21 positive mentions
stability67 negative mentions
  • The game features a unique tech tree that is partly randomized, providing a different experience with each playthrough.
  • Combat is fully tactical and real-time, allowing for strategic ship design and engaging battles.
  • The game has a rich lore and diverse races, each with their own unique mechanics and playstyles.
  • The user interface is clunky and unintuitive, making basic tasks overly complicated and frustrating.
  • The game suffers from performance issues, with long turn times and crashes, especially in late-game scenarios.
  • Many mechanics are poorly explained or missing documentation, leading to confusion for new players.
  • gameplay
    133 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay of "Sword of the Stars II" has received mixed reviews, with many players criticizing its overcomplicated mechanics, clunky interface, and lack of clear documentation, which detracts from the overall experience. While some appreciate the depth and variety of gameplay options, others find the game tedious and frustrating due to slow pacing and frequent crashes. Overall, the game seems to struggle with balancing complexity and accessibility, leaving many fans of the original feeling disappointed.

    • “The gameplay evolved from the first one and it keeps me addicted for nights and nights.”
    • “It's got lots of complex mechanics that allow for an interesting, irrepeatable gameplay experience.”
    • “The best of the original SOTS has finally returned with much improved graphics and gameplay.”
    • “If you’re here expecting the streamlined fun of the original Sword of the Stars, buckle up, because this sequel takes everything that worked and throws it into a black hole of overcomplicated mechanics.”
    • “Its clunky interface, unintuitive mechanics, and glaring lack of polish make it a painful experience.”
    • “The mechanics of this game might be more cryptic than Dwarf Fortress, with very little help for new players aside from a few vague detail screens.”
  • graphics
    102 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with many praising the stunning visuals and improved ship models compared to its predecessor, Sword of the Stars 1. However, some users criticize the overall aesthetic quality, describing it as blurry or dated, and express disappointment in the game's performance issues and interface design. While the graphics are often highlighted as a strong point, they are overshadowed by gameplay mechanics and technical problems that detract from the overall experience.

    • “The graphics are amazing!”
    • “Graphically, it's stunning in space combat.”
    • “A worthy successor to Sword of the Stars, the graphics are vastly improved, the races are tweaked, and the introduction of star systems makes the gameplay deeper and more interesting.”
    • “The original game had better visuals in some areas, making this downgrade all the more baffling.”
    • “The prettier graphics, bigger ships, and larger systems are not worth all the bugs, dreary gameplay, random crashes, and generally unfinished nature of the game.”
    • “Worst of all is that somehow, despite all the shiny new graphics and toys, they've made combat both look and play worse than the original.”
  • story
    74 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's story aspect is criticized for lacking a cohesive narrative or campaign, despite having rich lore and backstory for its factions. Players find the mission system overly complicated and tedious, detracting from the immersive experience of exploration and combat that characterized its predecessor. While the game introduces interesting mechanics, many feel that the execution hampers the overall storytelling and gameplay flow.

    • “Very vibrant backstory for each of the races/factions.”
    • “I loved SOTS 1 and the plot and story was absolutely beautiful.”
    • “It has an amazing story behind each of the races and has a unique twist for each one with their FTL travel and how they research.”
    • “This game is one big sad story and the reason I'll never buy another Paradox title.”
    • “Unfortunately, this is where the story apparently ends as the publisher, after years of slow improvement, decided to stop further progress on this game.”
    • “Story - 2/10 (there is no story, other than the lore you get from either the forums or within the encyclopedia; there's really nothing else.)”
  • stability
    69 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's stability has been widely criticized, with numerous users reporting persistent bugs, crashes, and performance issues, particularly on older hardware. While some players note improvements over time, many still describe it as a "buggy mess" that feels unfinished and prone to freezing or crashing. Overall, the consensus is that the game remains unstable and unpolished, detracting significantly from the gameplay experience.

    • “Even though it launched with bugs, everything got fixed and it runs great now.”
    • “If Kerberos ever gets the green light to continue patching (unlikely at this point), I'd expect they'd be able to get it as close to bug-free as SOTS Prime.”
    • “It's incredibly buggy though, crashes often, it will indicate you're near an enemy, make changes based on that, and you're not. It also got incredibly slow playing a large game on my old gaming laptop that had an HDD, not a solid-state disk.”
    • “This game is unfinished and a buggy mess.”
    • “After more than 2 years worth of patches after initial release, this is still unplayably buggy.”
  • optimization
    25 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's optimization has received overwhelmingly negative feedback, with many users reporting severe performance issues, frequent crashes, and memory leaks, particularly on high-end systems. While some players have experienced stable performance after updates, the overall consensus is that the game is poorly optimized, requiring excessive hardware capabilities and resulting in frustrating slowdowns during gameplay. Despite some improvements, many features remain lacking, and the game is often deemed unplayable in larger scenarios.

    • “Very stable, not seen any crashes, very smooth performance.”
    • “The game has updated plenty since release, fixing many of the bugs and performance issues other reviewers were having.”
    • “Right now I can't see anything wrong with this game, I have seen no crashes, no bugs, no performance issues, nothing, seems like a good game and it's still getting patches years after release.”
    • “The performance is horrible, even with the enhanced edition.”
    • “There's a memory leak/optimization problem that crashes the game within 100 or so turns (sooner if you play on larger maps) which makes it hard to hit end-tier tech.”
    • “Lastly the game is just terribly optimized requiring a far more powerful machine than it should to run properly and even then at some point you're still going to suffer massive slowdowns at countless load screens and menu transitions.”
  • grinding
    22 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The reviews highlight a pervasive sense of tedium in the grinding aspects of the game, with many players finding the gameplay slow and cumbersome due to a complicated interface and excessive micromanagement. While some elements of the game are appreciated, the overall experience is marred by tedious mechanics, such as fleet management and planet surveying, which detract from the enjoyment and immersion. Many players suggest that modifications could alleviate some of these issues, but as it stands, the grinding nature of the game makes it difficult to recommend.

    • “There are many things to love in this game, but what they did with the actual gameplay is make it more tedious, more slow... the first game was already slow, many 'quick' sessions turn into a 600-turn gameplay, and this one is even worse.”
    • “It's such a shame then, that the best part of this game is gated behind tedious, overly complicated turn-based gameplay and an interface that's a significant downgrade from the original's somewhat questionable, but still usable interface.”
    • “Unfortunately, it also includes a tedious fleet management and mission system and a very poor user interface.”
  • music
    8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music in the game receives mixed reviews, with some players appreciating its ability to set the atmosphere and enhance the experience, while others find it monotonous or lacking in memorability. Notably, the soundtrack is described as having a war-like theme that some enjoy, but overall, the ambiance and quality of the music are criticized, with some players feeling it detracts from the gameplay.

    • “The music really helps to set the atmosphere and the tone of the game, even if it's not particularly memorable.”
    • “Sotsii has arguably one of the best original soundtracks, though it has a very war-like theme.”
    • “It's a great relaxing game to play and listen to music.”
    • “The soundtrack is horrible.”
    • “The ambiance is terrible - the ugly graphics and terrible and/or nonexistent music just make you want to quit right away, which is what I did.”
    • “Similarly, the music really helps to set the atmosphere and the tone of the game, but I wouldn't say that it's particularly memorable.”
  • replayability
    6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Overall, "Sword of the Stars II" offers a mix of opinions on replayability. While some players appreciate the depth and variety provided by multiple races and technologies, others find the game less engaging due to user interface issues and a lack of significant improvements over its predecessor, leading to a diminished replay value.

    • “There is too much to mention in an already long review, which gives Sword of the Stars II a lot of depth and replayability.”
    • “Good amount of depth and replayability with 7 widely different races and lots of technology to choose from.”
    • “It gets me to the third thing that I like about this game: replayability.”
    • “It has lots of potential, but unfortunately this does not translate into something with a lot of replayability.”
    • “Sword of the Stars II was just as boring as Sword of the Stars I, and this time Sword of the Stars II was less user-friendly in comparison. At least Sword of the Stars I was more playable and the commands were easy to find, but with Sword of the Stars II, they changed the command tab to such an extent that you can't find half of the things you need. For these and many other reasons, my personal rating for Sword of the Stars II is 1/10.”
    • “It is much more playable now, but the massive UI lag makes the game a pain to play.”
  • atmosphere
    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's atmosphere is enhanced by its music, which effectively sets the tone, though it lacks memorability. However, the community forums exhibit a toxic and hostile environment, where constructive feedback is often unwelcome and met with trolling, reflecting a broader unwillingness to acknowledge and address existing issues.

    • “There's also a toxic atmosphere on the forums at times, where feedback, even constructive, was not permitted and likely to be trolled.”
    • “There has been a very hostile atmosphere towards feedback and an unwillingness to admit that certain problems exist, much less any indication that they will be addressed.”
    • “Similarly, the music really helps to set the atmosphere and the tone of the game, but I wouldn't say that it's particularly memorable.”
  • monetization
    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Users express a willingness to financially support projects through platforms like Kickstarter, but they believe that inadequate advertising is a significant factor contributing to project failures.

    • “I would dump money on it in Kickstarter, but really, advertising is why projects fail.”
    • “The monetization strategy feels overly aggressive and detracts from the overall experience.”
    • “It's frustrating to see so many paywalls in a game that could be great without them.”
  • emotional
    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The emotional aspect of the game is marked by a sense of heartbreak, particularly regarding the developers' struggles and frustrations with the project's release, which many feel was forced despite its flaws. Additionally, there are unsettling moments in the game that evoke discomfort and confusion, contributing to a complex emotional experience.

    • “Just listening to the devs and how angry and depressed they were at being literally forced to put out what they knew was a broken mess was heartbreaking.”
    • “It's so heartbreaking when a company completely drops a project like this.”
  • humor
    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Players find the humor in the game to be significantly improved with the free expansion, particularly enjoying the comedic elements of battling alien foes. The addition of new features has enhanced the overall comedic experience, making it more entertaining than before.

    • “Fixed and enhanced with a free expansion, firing lazors at alien scum is more hilarious than ever.”
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55%Critics’ scoreBased on 1 critic reviews
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188h Median play time
188h Average play time
100-290h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 7 analyzed playthroughs
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Frequently Asked Questions

Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL is a strategy game with science fiction theme.

Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL is available on PC and Windows.

On average players spend around 188 hours playing Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL.

Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL was released on November 29, 2012.

Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL was developed by Kerberos Productions.

Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL has received neutral reviews from both players and critics. Most players liked this game for its gameplay but disliked it for its stability.

Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL is a single player game with multiplayer support.

Similar games include StarDrive, StarDrive 2, Distant Worlds 2, Galactic Civilizations III, Endless Space and others.