Distant Worlds: Universe

 PC
User Score
8.1

Generally favorable reviews- based on 104 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 81 out of 104
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 104
  3. Negative: 15 out of 104

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. telefoonboek
    Nov 19, 2014
    3
    I'll toss in a bad review. This doesn't mean the game is bad! It means I had a poor experience with this game. The game is priced on steam likea tripple AAA game. 54,95 euro.

    I am a casual player, I work and in my spare time I enjoy space games. This means I have little time to do it properly. When I played the game I had to start with the turtorials, they do a very poor job of    I'll toss in a bad review. This doesn't mean the game is bad! It means I had a poor experience with this game. The game is priced on steam likea tripple AAA game. 54,95 euro.

    I am a casual player, I work and in my spare time I enjoy space games. This means I have little time to do it properly. When I played the game I had to start with the turtorials, they do a very poor job of explaining the game to me. I was intimidated by the ammount of custimazation, menu's, options and so on. After a few turtorials, i knew the menu's but not how to play. For a 55 euro game I expect better. Sorry for me that isn't worth this price. Some may have more time then me, get through it and have a nice experience, I didn't.    … Expand
  2. Muzze
    Aug 13, 2014
    2
    As a newcomer to the Distant Worlds series I found myself baffled at how poorly the tutorial teaches you to play the game. It is extremely unfriendly and makes this overcomplicated game an annoyance to get started with.

    Being a lifelong fan of strategy, both real time and turn based, I must say that I find this game to be very overrated and poorly executed. The concept of the game is    As a newcomer to the Distant Worlds series I found myself baffled at how poorly the tutorial teaches you to play the game. It is extremely unfriendly and makes this overcomplicated game an annoyance to get started with.

    Being a lifelong fan of strategy, both real time and turn based, I must say that I find this game to be very overrated and poorly executed. The concept of the game is good - I am all for space exploration, diplomacy, colonization, war and everything good that should be included in a good Sci-Fi strategy game. That being said, I find that the gameplay of Distant Worlds: Universe is simply too understimulating and the real time elements, such as combat, are a joke. I am not even going to mention the graphics.

    TLDR:

    Distant Worlds: Universe is not worth the full price of 54,99 euros. The game is overrated and the good reviews it has received are a sign of a starving gaming community rather than a good game.    … Expand
  3. JaysWay
    Dec 17, 2014
    0
    I was a new player for Distant Worlds and i gave up after watching more than 6 hours of crappy tutorials & gameplay.
    I didn't even managed to folow 1 of those from the start, because the development progresses differently during gameplay.
    The game is over documented like a 30 yo text base game, and doesn't show new players what it's all about. To me it seems like some programmer is    I was a new player for Distant Worlds and i gave up after watching more than 6 hours of crappy tutorials & gameplay.
    I didn't even managed to folow 1 of those from the start, because the development progresses differently during gameplay.
    The game is over documented like a 30 yo text base game, and doesn't show new players what it's all about. To me it seems like some programmer is trying to create a game that cannnot be understand by normal people who love space games, he's just trying to annoy us ! Well, SCREW THIS WANNABEE SPACE GAME, it has lost me ( and i'm sure a lot more people )    … Expand
  4. entar256
    Dec 2, 2018
    1
    This game is utterly horrible. How this game garners so high a score from critics and users is a complete mystery for me.

    It may have some depth, somewhere. The interface is feels like it is lifted from a Win98 game project by a grammarschool student. Diplomacy is just bad. Moving ships is eyegaugingly tedious. The economy is hidden behind so obscure mechanics you might as well study    This game is utterly horrible. How this game garners so high a score from critics and users is a complete mystery for me.

    It may have some depth, somewhere. The interface is feels like it is lifted from a Win98 game project by a grammarschool student. Diplomacy is just bad. Moving ships is eyegaugingly tedious. The economy is hidden behind so obscure mechanics you might as well study for cryptology instead.
    Graphicswise it is servicable, and is one of the only two pluspoints I can give it, however dont mistake this for "good" graphics.
    The game runs... well... it runs. It hasnt crashed, which is the other pluspoint I give. However, the gameplay is as fun as trying to trek through a swamp covered in honey and mosquitobait while swinging a waspnest over your head. It is dreary, extremely boring and filled with unlimited "Why the **** did this happen?"

    You can totally mess your empire up if you do not consider the strategic resources you NEED to expand. If you have none of them in the proximity of your colony, you can restart because you will stall your entire economy and spend hours looking at tiny ships trudging through what must be molasses.
    If you somehow get through the first part of the game, you get into the "Pop-up" hell that is the mid to lategame. You can "automate" most, if not all, of the game. However the AI is dumber than a sack of potatoes. I had gone negative according to the "cashflow", which coincidently didnt lower my cash(?), by tens of thousands of credits and the cashflow wasnt changing. I checked the maintainence and I had hundreds of troops sitting on my planets, covering the availibe continents and spilling into the oceans taking up about 100k of cash per... something. The AI decided, as I wasnt in a war, that I needed to fortify my planets by fielding an army that was double that of ALL my other opponents COMBINED.
    The logisticsystem is as enjoyable as having your teeth removed by a jackhammer, as you cannot influence the freighters being built, as this is handled by the ArtificalStupidity controlling the private sector. Neat idea, but outright moronic in its implementation. I had piles upon piles of resources sitting on miningstations, planets and such, but my private sector had foreclosed and had a small number of freighters, all busy trying to refuel on the other side of the galaxy, because... reasons. I couldnt build anything efficiently because the freighters was gallowanting around the whole empire looking for... I have no idea what.

    Fleet handling is... at best boring, and at worst just hairippingly frustrating. For example: if you have a fleet, in which one (1) ship is out of fuel. Regardless where this ship is located, the WHOLE fleet will move at a snails pace. It was easier to build a completely NEW FLEET instead of waiting for the old fleet to refuel. And beware, if you have not placed energy collectors on your fleet, and your fleet is refueling, you might be looking at a infinite refuel-loop, as the first ship is out of fuel when the last ship has refueled. No distribution of ships to other refuel points, all just go for the one THEY feel like going to and queue up there happily using up fuel waiting for the rest of the fleet.
    If you produce ships at a shipyard, they will be set automatically to be "automated" (yea... sure... automated), and will as soon as they complete head off to... somewhere, and while they do that they will run out of fuel and run at a snails pace... AGAIN. I found no way to easily multiselect ships and remove the automation, without either: placing them into a fleet and issuing an order, or individually selecting each and every ship and clicking "Select ship" and "Turn off automation".

    The diplomacy is a horrid wreck, and do not be tempted to enable the AI to handle it either. The AI will act as it sees fit. I was attacking the last planet in an empire, when suddenly my ships stopped attacking. In the middle of the last battle, in a bloody war, the AI decided to accept a peace treaty with the other faction. In a war that was WON. AND, as the enemy AI cant see reality, as I had parked a fleet above his only planet, destroyed his whole fleet, pulverized every station he owned, and was blasting his every attempt to start constructing any ship, the enemy AI offered me... ME! a peace treaty where I gave away two (2!) colonies and a couple of stations. I gave away two colonies for the privilege of a peace treaty... with an empire that was beaten into a bloody pulp... and the AI was gracious to let me live and offered me a peace treaty. I was... just staring into the screen. This didnt just happen one time but several.

    I cannot, in any conscience, recommend this game in any form. It is a really bad game. The interface is ghastly, the mechanics are so obscure you will rip your hair out, and the economics is rageinducing.
    I played for about 30-50h. Had to stop due to mental illness induced.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 6 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 6
  3. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. Eurogamer
    Jun 30, 2014
    70
    While Distant Worlds may be a paragon of its style, I can only recommend it to a select few: those with beefy computers and plenty of time to really dig into the meat of this stunningly elegant and impressively wide-ranging bit of software.
    Read full review
  2. PCGamesN
    Jun 27, 2014
    90
    An exceedingly complex, infinitely rewarding space strategy game. It’s made me more excited about the genre than any other game of its kind since Galactic Civilizations II.
    Read full review
  3. Gamer.no
    Jun 18, 2014
    90
    An already great game returns as one of the best space strategy games ever made.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »