When I was a senior in high school, I had a group of friends that got together every Friday, usually playing Halo multiplayer or Age of Empires. But in 2008 a game called Sins of a Solar Empire was released and consumed the next year and a half of our lives. A grand strategy game on a universal scale, Sins of a Solar Empire is one of the most engrossing tactical experiences ever created, and now developer Ironclad Games is back with the even bigger Sins of a Solar Empire 2, out today on Steam. Sixteen years later, the universe is even bigger and more majestic, prime for conquering from players that love massively complex strategy.
Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is essentially a blend of two strategy sub-genres, real-time strategy and 4X strategy. RTS games typically focus on building and commanding units and directly controlling the battlefield, while 4X or “grand strategy” is on a much larger scale and generally involves building an empire through economy and technology, sometimes conquering a massive map and taking down multiple other opponents.
That blend of genres is what makes Sins of a Solar Empire so unique, letting you control both the minutiae of individual battles while still managing the vast web of an empire that you’re crafting. Each game of Sins takes place on a massive web of galaxies and planets, almost like a playing board. You play as one of three races all of which have their own unique technologies and strengths; the human Trader Emergency Coalition, the psychic Advent, or alien Vasari.
What’s fascinating about Sins 2, however, is that absolutely everything plays out in real-time. As you collect resources and build your star fleets, you’ll expand and control more planets and galaxies, opening up new resources and options. While you can look at everything from that overall game-board like strategic view, you can also zoom into each and every individual planet and manually command your forces, upgrade your defenses, and more. Make no mistake, this is an incredibly strategy-heavy game that demands a lot from the player — you’ll constantly be juggling multiple fronts in your ongoing galactic conflict, researching new upgrades and tech, and looking for weak spots to expand your empire.
That massive variety in strategy is what instantly drew my group of high school friends to Sins of a Solar Empire. We’d set up massive games with five of us vying for a universe, playing for ten sometimes fifteen hours straight in revoltingly epic space conflicts. It’s the kind of game you can completely lose yourself in for hours, but more than that, every single time you play Sins feels markedly different. Whether you’re going against other players or AI, no two matches play out exactly the same — you’ll constantly need to adjust your strategy and adapt.
In fact, Sins of a Solar Empire 2 puts an even greater emphasis on that aspect, allowing for a wealth of new strategy options. You could place a squadron of fighters on an asteroid revolving around a planet, then wait as that asteroid moves around an enemy fleet to launch a flank attack. Or you can use a massive warship to block a planetary bombardment, giving you extra time to scramble defenses.
The strategy of Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is incredibly rich and packed with options, seriously scratching an itch for space tactics that almost nothing else can.
