Stellaris: Astral Planes

First of all, it is realistically 3.5 stars and not 4. I am a huge fan so I might have rated higher. As fun as this DLC is, it just does not realistically offer enough content to justify the price tag. Astral actions are essentially space magic. Sounds cool, right? Yeah but only 2 of them are somewhat useful in the long run and you can totally play the game without ever clicking them. Still pretty cool though. Astral rifts are as advertised. Meaning glorified archeological sites with branching narratives that may lead to different rewards. Generally the harder they are, the better the reward, but it may not be the reward you want for your build. Nice to give your scientists something to do mid-late game though and some of the relics are kind of bonkers. The new origin.... Man... The rewards of the SECOND rift that opens in your system are... Insane. (tip: do not close it at the end of the narrative. Not sure what happens if you do.) Not game breaking, but above anything I have seen that does not involve shenanigans. It is honestly pretty well written and fun with a nice mechanic to help you explore the rifts faster. Hard to say more without spoilers. It is only one origin though. The new civics behave as advertised, mostly. The new "tall" civic Sovereign Guardianship is unsurprisingly great at reducing empire size for wide empires as well, seeing as pops are the largest contributor to that. Got it to -70% empire size from pops by midgame without even trying lol. Makes you hard to conquer too. The dark matter civic is all different kinds of fun and potentially OP, mostly because of the agenda that gives you a dark matter tech, but the free dark matter resource does not hurt at all. Not like you could not just invade a FE to get said tech though, so... The other two civics are pretty nice, but also niche. Physics research is now very easy to max out. Their other effects, while nice, are achievable with other means. This review got very long, hope it helps. Cheers!

I really liked the idea of adding events to the actual game, but I definitely expected more from this. The DLC adds some civics and story events similar to the already existing archeological sites. All have in common that they have little or no influence on the game because you are already able to get such bonuses in other ways. Most of the not-so-extensive choices made in the course of these events lead to the same ends. Also, there are so few that after some matches you have seen the most of them and start to ignore them entirely. This can be expected with a story pack, but it is a question of price. That's the respective point the content does not match the price tag especially if you look at other DLC like ancient relics which adds also similar mechanics to the game. I also found the stories told in this one more interesting. I can only recommend not buying this product and spending your money elsewhere. Wait for a sale or skip it completely.

The core of the DLC is that it adds rifts you can explore with a science ship. These look and behave much like the existing archeology dig sites. The scientist works them and occasionally you get presented with an event with a couple of options. Curious alternate universe stuff, not bad as far as stories go, but as soon as the work ends that is it. No continuing events like one of the "Dimensional Portal" alternatives. The DLC gives you another rare resource - astral threads - you can spend on bonuses. One of these is a new building you can unlock and upgrades. This building, its workers, produce the resource and massive quantities physics research allowing you to easily reach double of society and engineering empire wide. DLC adds a new origin and pre-defined race which might play into it better, somehow, which I haven't played yet. Overall it feels similar to the psychic and spiritual stuff already in the game.