If you’re in the mood for a spot of space domination this weekend and somehow haven’t yet given Paradox Interactive’s galactic empire builder Stellaris a whirl in the six years it’s been out, now’s the perfect time to do so, given it’s free to play for the next few days.
Stellaris, a sort of space-faring amalgam of grand strategy and 4X action, burst onto the scene back in 2016 to significant acclaim. Six years on, it’s a substantially different beast, with Paradox having made some sweeping changes along the way, most notably in its radical 2.0 release.
The many faceted road to galactic supremacy it presents is still a tonne of strategic fun though, even if – as is generally the way with Paradox titles – the purity of the base game has now been somewhat muddied by an increasingly unwieldy stack of post-launch DLC.
If you’d like to flex your space muscles and see what’s what in Stellaris’ orbit, it’s entirely free to do so this weekend on Steam. You can download and play it in exchange for exactly zero pee until Monday, 23rd May, whereupon you’ll need to actually buy it to continue playing.