14 DAY TRIAL // It’s incredibly hard to manage a big space empire. There are always big decisions to worry about, like the best tech to invest in for the next couple of years, or whether to try and infiltrate an enemy civilization or simply declare war outright.
There are also smaller ones, like the composition of fleets or the exact approach to exploration. And players only have limited resources of attention and time. So I let my advisors handle most economic matters and almost all military shipbuilding, while I am pondering whether I want my harmony-loving species to expand towards a potentially threatening neighbor or if their future should lie as far from it as possible.
Ikkuro & Dhayut is the first downloadable content pack created for Distant Worlds 2, by the same team at CodeForce that created the core experience. The DLC celebrates one year since the initial launch and includes access to two new playable factions.
The Ikkuro are peaceful and aim to create a happy and harmonious society. They get ships that can self-heal and their focus on biology means they have more options for terraforming. The Dhayut are on the opposite side of the niceness spectrum, devious and paranoid. They use fast ships, will exploit slaves more efficiently, and are good at infiltrating other factions to manipulate them.
Mechanically, Distant Worlds 2 remains a very complex game, filled with classic mechanics. Players can choose colony sites, direct research, manage leaders, conduct diplomacy, and try to build a capable military for their civ. The goal is to spread among the stars and outcompete rivals.
Meanwhile, a civilian economy is constantly running in the background. Even better, the game allows every element to be automated, while players focus on the aspects they find the most intriguing. Given the depth of Distant Worlds 2 this is a great option to have.
The two new civilizations have clearly defined approaches to the big game mechanics, which is an interesting approach. The Ikkuro will be handicapped in the military sphere but their happiness focus makes it easy to create a thriving civ that can overwhelm with money and fast research.
The Dhayut purge their own leaders but they can both shift the relationships between two other empires and sustain longer war while having ground force advantages. It’s fun to run campaigns using both the DLC factions and constantly compare their approaches.
Distant Worlds 2 takes time to fully learn and understand. Automation options and the in-game wiki help. Once players have invested the energy to do that, this is one of the best space-based strategy titles to live out science fiction fantasies in.
Ikkuro & Dhayut does not change the presentation of Distant Worlds 2 in significant ways. The two new races have plenty of character and the game offers a good-looking take on classic science fiction strategy. The user interface remains a little inscrutable at first but, after a few hours of playtime, makes it easy to direct or automate a big civilization. The sound design is decent.
Conclusion
Anyone who has not spent tens of hours with the space-based strategy does not need to pick up the DLC. But this is a great time to return to base Distant Worlds 2, with the arrival of the Aurora update, which tweaks game mechanics and improves automation options.
A review key was provided by the publisher
