Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is an intricate real-time strategy 4X with a detailed combat system, a multitude of galactic factions, and spinning solar systems. It’s a technical game that took a while to dig into, and after spending 2 weeks with it, I’ve gotten a good feel for how it works.
Sins 2 places you in the shoes of a galactic commander, tasking you with conquering the galaxy and asserting dominance over your opponents. You’ll need to defeat foes while building your empire, managing your planets, and setting up diplomatic partnerships to secure victory.
Here’s a breakdown of the good, the bad, and the downright confusing.
The good
One of the best things about this game is that it knows how complicated it is. Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is a big game with a mountain of data and elements to sift through as a new player, and it’s a little intimidating to take in at first.
Thankfully, the tutorials are rich and detailed. There’s a full list of walkthroughs available as soon as you load the game for the first time, taking you through each crucial function and setting you up for your first match nicely.
There’s also a huge amount of content on offer. The maps range from 2 to 10 players, some with predetermined stories and others randomly generated.
Some are a lot trickier than others, and I’d suggest starting with the three-player maps when you play the game for the first time. The massive maps can be a lot of fun, but they can feel chaotic, especially if you allow ‘colonization victories,’ which means whichever player has the most planets under their control wins.
There are plenty of ways to customize your experience, too. You can assign teams and change difficulty levels if you’re playing against the computer, for example - like I was for this review - and you can adjust elements like the speed that resources are gathered, too.
Once you’ve sunk a considerable amount of time into the game, matches feel rewarding to win. I was initially concerned that my first match would end with a flat “alright then” once I won, but I found it genuinely exciting to snatch the victory right at the last minute.
It’s also worth noting that the game performed well, for the most part. There’s one performance issue which I’ll note in a moment, but generally speaking, the game ran well and didn’t suffer any graphical issues during my time with it. The aesthetic was pleasant enough overall, and being able to zoom in on ships to see them fighting up-close was thrilling.
The bad
The only issue I noticed performance-wise is that the game took a long time to load whenever I opened it initially. Once it was past the first loading screen, everything worked as it should, but getting into the game from the launcher was mildly frustrating each time.
Something that I found immediately off-putting when scouring the game description was the use of AI artwork. It’s minimal, but it’s there and worth being mindful of, regardless of your opinion on artificial intelligence in video games.
The Steam description notes, “This game used AI to help quickly iterate through designs for some UI elements using our own artwork as a baseline,” adding that AI is also used for translation.
It doesn’t seem to have been used heavily, and notes the team’s own artwork was used as a seed, but it’s still underwhelming to see in a game that relies heavily on aesthetic appeal. It also doesn’t seem to have been worth the potential controversy, either - the UI is fine, but it doesn’t look particularly stunning and it can be confusing to parse at a glance.
Something else that’s worth noting about this title is that it’s not exceptionally unique. This may not be an issue for some, but if you’re hoping for a fresh spin on 4X space-based combat, this is not the game for you.
Nothing caught me by surprise or overly impressed me in terms of world-building. Of course, it’s not a story-driven game, but other than the factions having individual aesthetics, everything felt very expected for the genre and style.
The confusing
Something that was highlighted as a competitively intriguing mechanic in the tutorial stage was that planets, moons, and asteroids would slowly change their orbit path over time.
This, in theory, presented new and exciting combat opportunities, allowing you to pre-emptively set up strikes on unsuspecting opponents.
While it sounded interesting on paper and looked to add drastically to the real-time style of combat, in practice, it hardly affected my gameplay experience. Most of my matches went on for a good few hours apiece, but I never found the orbit paths changing to be an exceptionally game-changing mechanic.
It’s not an overwhelming issue, of course, and it’s possible that this is due to the maps I favored - I preferred matches with 2-3 players instead of the larger settings - but it’s important to highlight as this mechanic is heavily featured in the game’s description and tutorial stages.
Final thoughts
Sins of a Solar Empire 2 was a difficult game to crack. While highlighting its difficulty may get a few eyerolls from diehard 4X players, it took a lot of practice to get to grips with how matches worked and what was needed to build a solid strategy.
After 2 weeks with the game, though, I’m converted. Winning a Sins 2 match felt incredibly satisfying, and even the artificial opponents created some exciting galactic battles that kept me glued to my screen.
It’s not an overly unique game by any means, but it does what it says on the tin. Some elements felt underwhelming or overly complex, but for the most part, it delivered a solid 4X experience that felt rewarding after some experimentation and practice.
If you’re looking for something new and fresh in the world of strategy games, this might not be the game for you. But if you’re looking for technical, celestial battles with lots of tiny details to optimize and organize, you might end up falling in love with this behemoth of a game.
Full Disclosure: A copy was provided by PR for the purposes of this review. Reviewed on PC.
