Sins of a Solar Empire 2, the anticipated technique sequel by Ironclad Games that’s being revealed by Stardock, is lastly releasing on Steam this summer time. However unbeknownst to many followers, it successfully stealth launched on the Epic Recreation Store greater than a 12 months in the past — a launch that writer Stardock has principally declined to publicize till now.
Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is the sequel to the cult-favorite PC technique recreation launched in 2008. Like the unique, it is going to mix components of real-time technique with 4X empire-building, however virtually talking it is an excuse to see a lot of cool spaceship battles. The brand new recreation will add help for a number of cores — sure, the unique is that previous — whereas refining quite a few components of the sport, reminiscent of orbiting planets.
The sequel was quietly launched into early entry in late 2022, leaving some followers confused over the nature of Stardock’s relationship with Epic and resulting in hypothesis over whether or not an exclusivity association was in place. Requested for clarification, Epic declined to touch upon phrases with builders and publishers.
A number of months after its preliminary launch, Stardock eliminated the early entry flag however in any other case remained silent. It wasn’t till Wednesday’s announcement that Sins of a Solar Empire 2 went public with a main announcement to followers and the press.
In a assertion despatched to IGN, CEO Brad Wardell defined why Stardock held again its advertising and marketing push till now. “We view Sins 2 as an ongoing service that continues to evolve over time, which you’ll see with our common replace cadence over the previous 18 months because the recreation first appeared on Epic Games Store,” Wardell stated.
“Epic has been and continues to be a nice accomplice, however we all know that many of our followers are devoted to Steam for his or her libraries and we all know we solely get one shot at a Steam launch, so we determined to attend on doing any advertising and marketing push till we have been prepared for that. We’ve been engaged on a huge replace for the previous a number of months to coincide with the Steam launch, and this may even be made accessible to our Epic followers free of charge.”