14 DAY TRIAL // Paradox Interactive held its own convention last week and announced quite a few new projects it intends to publish. One of them is Sword of the Stars II, a sequel to the 4X space strategy title set to be released on the PC at some point in 2011. And now both the developers at Kerberos Productions and the publishers at Paradox are ready to say a bit more about how they envision the new project.
Sword of the Stars 2 will feature the six races introduced in the original game and its expansions, while also introducing the Suul'ka, a species that was attacked by the Liir with biological weapons at the end of a bloody war. They are very interested in war and in domination of lesser races and their impact on the galaxy will likely be great.
Kerberos and Paradox are also talking about taking the entire experience to the next level, streamlining mechanics and making sure that players are able to understand everything that is going on in the game. The original Sword of the Stars was pretty opaque and while the expansions helped solve the problem, somewhat a lot of players were already uninterested, although fans are claiming that the game was on par with the experience offered by Sins of a Solar Empire or Galactic Civilizations II.
Fredrik Wester, the Chief Executive Officer of Paradox, said that “Sword of the Stars 2 is in its early conception but is already showing potential of becoming [a] Kerberos great masterpiece and we are very excited to play a part in bringing it to gamers worldwide,” while Martin Cirulis, the CEO of Kerberos, stated that the developers aimed to make Sword of the Stars 2 “far more than just a sequel where the graphics have been tuned up and a new unit or two thrown in. Instead players can look forward to a whole new game that is based on the central SotS experience, but willing and able to grow beyond it to offer even more in terms of strategy, tactics and gameplay.”