Stellaris: Grand Archive review – Gotta catch ‘em all

A strong addition that doesn’t burden players with yet another layer of management

Paradox Interactive

It’s hard to believe that there are some aspects of science fiction that Paradox Interactive doesn’t have covered in Stellaris yet – however, over eight years after its initial release, the developer still has some amazing additions to the grand strategy game in store, as its latest DLC proves.

Grand Archive, the newest Story Pack for Stellaris, adds a vital element to the title – a Pokémon mini-game. Thanks to the new Beastmaster civic and Domestication tradition tree, you can use your science ship to cast massive nets and catch space whales, space amoeba, and the other critters that roam the great void. This gives your science ships a more active role and, crucially, fills your Vivarium with fresh specimens of galactic fauna.

You can then either ruthlessly cull the beasts to gain additional resources or breed them – and a neat auto-culling tool allows you to automate this entire system, once you’ve got it going. Several rarities of each creature exist with rarer specimens providing more resources when culled. This incentivizes you to keep bringing in fresh genetic material to eventually breed only the finest types. 

Speaking of genetic material, though: Culling beasts allows you to study their genes and create domesticated clones you can use in your fleets. That’s right – this DLC enables you to field purely biological fleets. You can’t go full Yuuzhan Vong (if anyone remembers those villains from the old Star Wars Expanded Universe), as space stations, construction ships, and so on are still made out of metal, but it’s close. For this purpose, too, rarer specimens are important, as their genetic material enhances the base stats of the clones you can create for combat.

The other species mock me for breeding amoeba, but I'll have the last laugh when they get eaten by my pets. / Paradox Interactive

Suddenly, all those galactic critters you usually ignore become something valuable, tangible – the galaxy comes alive thanks to this change with your science ships chasing after migrating herds of space whales, unleashing their Pokéball-esque nets after them to find the one specimen with the best genetic makeup.

While catching creatures is something you have to do manually, the domestication and culling process pretty much runs itself. With a game that’s already as dense and layered as Stellaris, expansions simply adding things without increasing the burden on players by putting in more layers is important – and Grand Archive nails that aspect.

It's a spherical catching device, but don't get any ideas Nintendo. / Paradox Interactive

The system is also quite versatile in regards to role-playing. I already mentioned the Yuuzhan Vong, a genocidal warrior theocracy, as something the biological ships reminded me of – and you can totally use this system for something like this. You could also become a shepherd of galactic life, preserving it for future generations of space-faring species, or something entirely different.

That’s the theme for all of Grand Archive’s additions – they contribute to Stellaris without making it more complicated and deliver a flexible experience that can fuel several playthroughs with an entirely different flavor. 

Take the Galactic Curators civic and the Archivism tradition tree as another example.

They allow you to build a Grand Archive above your homeworld, a floating museum that houses the many relics you can find throughout the galaxy. Though it’s costly to exhibit them, they offer strong bonuses. It’s essentially a freely customizable stats provider that lets you yell “It belongs in a museum!” whenever you find something cool out there, between the stars. For the history student in me, this expansion of the archeology features is a perfect fit.

The Grand Archive houses all the treasures you pick up between the stars. / Paradox Interactive

And again, you can decide if you want to be a galactic Indiana Jones or more like Smaug, who’ll burn down a town to get his hands on some additional trinkets.

The new Treasure Hunters origin will greatly help you with the second approach, because it lets you role-play as space pirates. This path is a little more narrow, narratively, but who among us hasn’t dreamed of helming an empire of space piracy that hauls in treasure from far and wide?

You can store, exhibit, and even sell relics for some quick cash. / Paradox Interactive

Grand Archive includes new relics and space fauna as well, among them the disgustingly slimy Voidworms, which can actually be a new mid-game crisis – those things are pesky and can be seriously challenging to deal with. However, they can prove a potent addition to your forces, too, if you’re a Beastmaster.

Stellaris: Grand Archive neatly builds on already existing gameplay systems without adding any unnecessary busywork for the player and does so overflowing with flavor – it’s a strong addition to the space strategy game, though quite pricey for what it offers on paper.

Score: 8/10

Platform tested: PC (Steam)