ENDLESS Space™ 2

This is honestly one of the best 4x games I have ever played. The scope feels epic, but managing your empire is really streamlined and not crunchy at all. There are lots of customization options and the playable races are interesting and offer some varied gameplay styles.

I think this is the game that has convinced me that turn-based 4X Civilization-style strategy games are just not for me. I can't think of anything this game really does wrong. It's got good graphics and animations, they've built an interesting world, there's all sorts of well-done twists on the usual Civ-style mechanics... I really don't know what else I would ask for from a Civ-style game. Nonetheless, I didn't enjoy playing. I reached that point that you seem to get to in all games in this genre, where it's turn 40 or 50 or 60 and your gameplay loop just consists of tabbing through the production queues of all your cities (or in this case, systems), and making minor optimizations to what they're producing. Even worse, this game has another mechanic, population migration, which adds another layer of micromanagement. It's boring, it's grindy, it's repetitive, it simply isn't fun. And for ~40 turns or so, that's all you do, just mindless little build optimizations until eventually it's turn ~90 and it becomes even more pointless because you realize that the AI has no hope of beating you and that your victory is in the bag. You're too strong, and all that's left is to work toward one of the victory conditions. Another 40 turns go by of coasting to victory, and that's it, roll credits. At the core of all the interesting things this game does, the faction designs, the heroes, the quests, the combat system, you're still left with a game that mainly consists of just optimizing a build order and cruising to victory against an AI that really can't do anything except cheat on resources. It's unfair of me to give this game a negative review, considering it might be the best Civ-style game on the market. But what can I say? As much as I loved Civ II and Alpha Centauri as a kid, this genre just doesn't do it for me any more.

Pros: - polished UI that doesn't hide information but also isn't full of spreadsheets - good replayability thanks to very different factions - interesting event-driven stories and galactic lore Cons: - the AI opponents suffer from passivity - managing the planetary economy is somewhat dull and formulaic - low system limit means the mid-game is truncated and the end-game is predictable Endless Space 2 is a space 4X game that follows the well-trodden classics like Master of Orion 1/2 and Stellaris. You explore space, colonise, terraform and develop planets, conduct space diplomacy, build battle fleets, and eventually take over your rivals' empires. Compared with its competitors, ES2 is rather more focused on story-driven single-player campaigns. It comes with 8 pre-written factions (and 4 more as DLC), which avoid most of the usual space opera cliches, except for the fascistic human space empire and the obvious Klingon stand-ins who use honour as a resource. There are many flavour events and quests to undertake, depending on the faction and political party in power, which provide motivation to the gameplay. Even if you have already played through the game with one faction, changing to a different faction can provide a completely different experience. The planetary economy management is fairly standard - build buildings, grow your population, then specialise each planet to either industry, dust (money), science, or influence (diplomacy points). It lacks the population optimisation that makes Stellaris so deep. Overpopulation is a constant problem for most factions, since the carrying capacity of most planets is low and food is generally abundant. The player can only control a finite number of systems before they face large-scale revolts, which means systems with a small number of planets are practically useless unless they have some special resource. I found the late game kicks off early, as you are forced to go for a win because you can't expand anymore. Usually, this just means creating a stealth invasion fleet and making a surprise landing on the home planet of your rival empire. A lot less epic than Stellaris' end-game crises. The diplomacy system uses influence points for taking actions and claiming non-colonizable systems like neutron stars, black holes, etc., that provide small benefits. They also block the enemy from passing through your zone of control if you close your borders to them. This helps mitigate the common problem of 4X games where the AI sneaks into your core territory and plops out a colony out of nowhere. Even though the AI are pretty passive, you will usually end up in a war at some point. The space battles have the usual tensions — long vs short-range weapons, kinetic vs energy weapons, battleships vs carriers, behemoths vs zerg fleets, etc. The battles are cinematic — you pick your strategy from a list, then watch ships shoot it up. It's fun to watch for the first few battles, after which you will just automatically skip to the results. It's also not particularly easy to understand what happened and why you lost. The shipbuilding itself is very deep and rewarding. ES2 doesn't do anything particularly poorly and provides some interesting ideas in a well-polished package. If you need a more modern take on Master of Orion 2 or are bored with Stellaris, give this one a shot.

AI can do actions while you are kept clicking away pop-ups at the beginning of turn. No setting to pause turn at the beginning to allow to read before taking actions. Game is closer to real time strategy than real 4x. Stick to Stellaris or Civ if you are looking for a proper 4x game.

Endless Space 2 has way to many issues. I've given it multiple chances and usually somewhere around the 100-200 turn mark I'll just throw in the towel. One of the main issues this game has is lack of relevant information. It throws quite a bit of information at you and that constantly. The problem is often it lacks context. If I want to make the right decisions I need the right pieces of information at the proper time. For example if I have to many colonies because I expand to quickly (either through colonization or militarily) I should get information about that before my colonies go into revolts. Once I have to many systems if you expect me to just give them up because I can't reach relevant technology quickly enough I'll just end up being frustrated with the game and its design. Also putting these artificial barriers for expansion in place doesn't make the game better. It just creates an additional nuisance for me to deal with. Also if I'm in the negative monetarily then I should get detailled information on why I'm in the negative. I have a basic overview how much income I have but it often doesn't provide me with context how that ends up being that way. Ship combat for example consists of trial and error. I had fleets in ES2 that supposedly have a 60/40 advantage and once the battle started my ships got completely obliterated. I often just go to the result because the battle animation is not very good. After a while I noticed patterns and that the whole chance aspect is just nonsense. Ships that are efficient in close combat often seem to rather stick to mid or lange rage while my enemy just seems to very good at long range and stays there. And my ships just ignore the programmed tactics. Then there are various aspects that are not explained at all but just represented by icons. If you don't know what the icons mean....tough luck. ES2 in some aspects is really basic like the ship design but then again it is overly bloated with a messy user interface (see research for example). Often there is no rhyme or reason on why tech is placed where it is. Why are ship layouts in the empire development section and not in the military section like the weapons? It feels so arbitrary. In addition som tech is locked behind specific research entries while others are based on level of the respective research sections. Could you maybe pick one system and stick with it instead of obfuscating it unnecessarily? Also ES2 feels very linear in a lot of aspects due to its quest and mission system. You have a certain main quest line you will go through each time. It is different for each race but still the core aspect behind is the same. And while it is the same locations will be different and I've had situations where quest locations were really close and in others the same quest suddenly had objectives on the other side of the galaxy - what the heck? The political system feels way to random to be taken seriously. I've seen situations where one factions was supposeldy leading by a country maile in favoribility. Then comes election day and I support that main faction. But somehow the AI thinks I should be religious instead of scientific. It feels like nonsense at times where the game just rolls the dice for the actual numbers. Overall I can't recommend Endless Space 2. It's not the worst ever 4x game but it just lacks in the many aspects.

i just bought endless space 2 and it wont start on my 1 year old Alienware laptop with a Nvidia graphics card WTF

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I've had this game since 2018 but only really got hooked in 2026. Absolute masterpiece. I can only describe it as a perfect game in every aspect. Pure dopamine

这个制作组的一贯通病：美术好，故事背景好，就是实际游戏机制无聊，让人玩不下去，不如当小说看。 真不好说给好评还是差评。

Estou achando muito legal, bem dificil igual Stellaris mais é mais simples parece, gostei do sistema de batalhas e as animações de colonização é um jogo diferente mais é divertido . comprei com todas as dlcs então não testei tudo ainda