written by grekulf
Hello everyone!
Today I’m here to deliver some big news, namely that my tenure as Game Director for Stellaris is ending, and Stephen Muray (aka Eladrin) will be taking over. I will still be staying with Paradox Development Studios, but I will be stepping down so that I can focus on an unannounced project that I am leading.
Stellaris will be in great hands, and Stephen and the team deserve all the credit for 3.3 ‘Libra’. My involvement was no more than setting the initial path towards the Unity rework.
I am extremely proud and happy with what we’ve accomplished, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what Stephen and the team can achieve together. The game is possibly in a better state than it has ever been, and with the Custodian Initiative going strong I feel like now is the best time to step down and let someone else take the reins.
I also want to thank everyone I’ve worked with during these years. It’s been really fun to see this game that we love become more and more awesome by the day.
My History with Stellaris
Stepping down from Stellaris feels strange when I reflect upon it, since I have worked on Stellaris in various capacities since 2013. I began my journey with Stellaris working as the UI designer. I was actually the first UI designer at PDS, and back then I used to work on all the games we were working on. It wasn’t until the release of Stellaris in 2016 that I changed my role into game designer and focused on Stellaris for 100% of my time. I worked as a game designer until December 2018, when I took over as game director from Martin.
Looking back, the game has really made such an incredible journey since 2016. When Stellaris was released, we didn’t really know exactly what the game was supposed to be. We know it was a space 4X game with a lot of focus on exploration, but since it was the first game of its kind, we also had to let it grow up and gain its own identity.
Stellaris is interesting in that way, because it's a game that has undergone a lot of changes over the years, and I’m really proud of all the bold decisions and ambitious changes we have undertaken to make the game better.
The Annals of My Tenure
Ancient Relics was the first DLC that I designed and led, and the focus for that one was to expand some of the exploration content by creating a new system (archaeology) with progressive storylines where you could go back and read what happened. In contrast with the anomalies, archaeological sites are rarely removed and stay on the map even after being completed. In part, this was to help the galaxy feel more alive by having stories be a persistent part of it.
Ancient Relics also featured the Relics system, where I wanted to focus a little more on making a UI that looks really cool with unique icons for the Relics. Overall I really like how it looks when you have relics, and I’d very much like to have had other UIs feel as good as the Relic UI can do in some circumstances.
Lithoids was the first species pack we released during my time. The involvement from the game director on the species packs is relatively small. We write the initial high level design and theme, but most of the work is done by artists and content designers. It was really nice to see lithoids make their way into Stellaris, since pops that eat minerals is something a lot of people have been asking for for a long time. Lithoids was the first time we added gameplay to a species pack, and it really felt like it really put the cherry on top for the theme. Although this was an increase in scope for this type of DLC, I felt like it was the right thing for us to do.
Federations was the first big expansion that I led. As we’ve mentioned before on streams and alike, a strategy we’ve used to collect feedback and ideas into different “boxes”, like “warfare” or “diplomacy”. Diplomacy was the box that we hadn’t touched before, and it was for Federations that we got the chance to really dive deeper into that. We had a lot of ideas related to various diplomatic interactions, but I wanted Federations to focus on the “friendly” or “cooperative” parts of Diplomacy. We did a lot of cutting for Federations, because the initial list of ideas was too large to be feasible. Some of the ideas we cut eventually found their way into Nemesis instead.
The feature that I am probably the most happy about in Federations was the addition of the Origins. Origins feel like such a natural part of the experience now that it's hard to imagine a Stellaris without them. I also really like how the Galactic Community adds an interesting level of diplomatic plays. If anything, I’d love to have seen that be even more cutthroat and machiavellian.
The next species pack we had in the plans was scheduled to release around late October 2020, so we used the theme of Halloween as a source of inspiration for creating the design and theme for Necroids. I really like how thematic the Necroids pack ended up being, and I almost wish we could have done more. Scope control is important for the species packs however, since the species packs are largely cosmetic content with gameplay added as a bonus.
After Federations most of the team started working on Nemesis, which focused a lot on the hostile or insidious parts of Diplomacy. I really liked the overall theme of Nemesis, because it worked on so many levels. The new Intel system we added was really cool, and I really like how other alien empires feel more alien and mysterious now, especially with the new First Contact system & content. With Espionage we had a bunch of ideas, but in the end I think we only had time for about half of the Operations.
For Nemesis I think we had a lot of cool ideas, but I wish we would have had more time to do more with Espionage & Operations. I like how the system works, but we didn’t have quite enough time to give it enough teeth. In the end I really like how Federations and Nemesis came together to reinforce parts of Stellaris that had been lacking, while also emphasizing the clash of ideas and enabling more gray-zone conflicts.
The Aquatics Species Pack was a delightful update, as we finally got the chance to add Dolphinoids to the game. Like I’ve mentioned before, Dolphinoids have been used as funny examples in design meetings for many years, and I’m really happy with how we managed to finally give the swolephins a real existence!
As a game director I was less involved in direct implementation as time went by, and I instead focused more on long-term planning and goals. Sometime during all of this the ideas for the Custodian Initiative started to form. Obviously something like the Custodians isn’t new in the game industry overall (see games-as-a-service or game-development-as-a-service), but for us most of the challenges were organizational. It wasn't until we decided to split Paradox Development Studio into three studios (PDS Green, Red, Gold) that it started becoming a real possibility.
Getting the Custodian Initiative in place is probably one of the things that I am the most proud of.
Why the Custodian Initiative is so important to me
To me, the game industry is changing and it's getting more important to compete with new content. Before the Custodian Initiative, it was a lot harder to balance the base quality needs of the game (AI, performance, QoL etc.) with the need to produce new content, and it could also be many months between each update.
The idea is that the Custodian team is a clear reinvestment into improving the game and the game experience.. My hope was that better base quality for the game will lead to a higher amount of satisfaction and a higher number of monthly active users. My take is that happy players want to buy DLC, and since we also want to make the game we’re passionate about as good as possible, everyone wins. Since the Custodian initiative isn’t a subscription service, the best way to support it is to buy DLC that you feel good about.
My hope is that the Custodian Initiative will move us towards a direction where good game = happy players = revenue.
The Future is Looking Bright
I’ve been working with Stellaris for so many years now, so it's going to be incredibly fun for me to step down and watch from the side as the team makes Stellaris even more awesome for years to come.
Thank you so much for your support all these years,
Daniel Moregård
(Former) Game Director of Stellaris
2018-2022