The battle for galactic supremacy continues as Stardock and Ironclad Games will bring Sins of a Solar Empire II to Steam this Summer. Sins of a Solar Empire II seamlessly combines real-time strategy and 4X depth, delivering sprawling empires, huge tactical fleet battles, and unforgettable gameplay moments that can only be found in Sins II. Interested players can add the game to their wishlists now.

In Sins of a Solar Empire II, players must guide their faction against the threat of extinction with three distinct races: the Trader Emergency Coalition, the Vasari Empire, or the Advent Unity. Each race has been updated with their own asymmetric playstyle including unique starting conditions, units, abilities, and game-changing Empire Systems.

Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova is a 4X turn-based strategy game set in the 24th century where you take on the role of leading a spacefaring civilization that has just developed faster-than-light (FTL) travel. You begin the game with only your home planet and must research new technologies, explore the known galaxy, and colonize new worlds while keeping your people at home happy. At the same time, you will engage in trade, diplomacy, intrigue and war with other alien civilizations. Thanks to the invention of hyperdrive, your people are now ready to discover new worlds, encounter alien civilizations, and learn about the dark history that encompasses them all.

Stardock has released the latest sequel of its award-winning space strategy game series today into early access. Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova sees the player as the ruler of a united home world that has just discovered faster-than-light travel. Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova continues a 30-year trend of innovation in the series. This latest sequel introduces AI-generated content OpenAI's ChatGPT technology allowing players to create their own civilizations that uses AI to create the lore, conversation dialogs, quests and more. The game also uses AI, trained on decades of Stardock's alien art to deliver custom graphics for their custom civilization.

While seeing DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) claims used for the removal of copyrighted content on Youtube and the like is a common occurrence, seeing it used to take a game off digital store shelves is still a relatively new concept. However, that is precisely what happened to Stardock's Star Control: Origins which released back on September 20th, 2018. The DMCA claim itself comes from exclusive copyright holders Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford who were two of the original game designers that worked on the series' first and second installments back in the early 1990s for Accolade. Considering Stardock bought the brand, trademark and publishing rights in 2013, this particular DMCA claim may not be legitimate. Even so, the game has been pulled, oddly enough the DLC remains available for purchase.

While Paul and Fred are claiming exclusive copyright in regards to the original titles as well as any related materials present in said games, they also claim similar copyright in regards to Star Control 3. Even if they do have some form of a legitimate copyright claim, Stardock's title does not use characters or story threads from the previous games and is based in a separate standalone universe. Taking into account Stardock's ownership of the brand, the DMCA claim appears to be nothing more than a form of harassment directed at Stardock. Worse yet, considering the resulting loss of income due to the DMCA claim, the company will be laying off some developers assigned to Star Control: Origins. Considering this legal dispute has been ongoing for some time you can view Stardocks side of the story on a separate webpage. Meanwhile, you can see the original DMCA takedown at the source provided below.

Stardock's Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is currently available for free until November 18th from Humble Bundle. All you need to do is subscribe to the Humble Store Newsletter, at which point you can request a Steam key for what is considered one of the better space-based 4X grand strategy titles available. Although the title was originally released in 2012, Stardock has since further polished the game by optimizing the in-game graphics, removing the 2 GB RAM limit, adding larger worlds, better stability and improved mod support in an update back in April of 2017. All these changes made what I would consider a good game better, having played it quite a bit myself. That said if 4X strategy titles interest you give Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion a shot, after all, it is free so what do you have to lose?