STARS TRUCK

SINS OF A SOLAR EMPIRE II is reaching for the sky… and beyond

- Fraser Brown

For a lover of 4Xs who never quite got over the decline of real-time strategy, Sins of a Solar Empire was a panacea. It took most of what I adored about both strategy models and smooshed them together in an epic clash in space. It was a revelation that I expected to inspire imitators, but nearly 15 years on nobody else has attempted to replicate this extremely successful experiment. Thankfully, that’s about to change. Sins of a Solar Empire II is coming.

Developer Ironclad Games has been thinking about this sequel for a long time. The last piece of Sins DLC came out in 2018, a decade after the base game launched, and while Ironclad didn’t immediately start work on Sins 2 after that – development only began in earnest just over a year ago – discussions were already happening. The Minor Factions DLC wasn’t just a last hurrah for Sins: it was a hint at the future of the series.

“We were always thinking, ‘Let’s do a testbed on this,’” says Ironclad co-owner Blair Fraser. “Since Sins II is going to come out, what would this look like?” The original Sins was “much, much more combat focused”, but through the expansions the team was able to experiment more with diplomacy and NPC factions. And for Sins II, Ironclad has “gone to town” on that aspect of its cosmic conflict.

So while