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Stellaris: Ancient Relics brings dead precursor races to your galaxy

Start digging up the relics of the galactic past

Stellaris: Ancient Relics is the latest story pack for Paradox’s now-venerable intergalactic strategy game – but instead of placing further mysteries among the stars, the new DLC brings the focus down to the secrets lying deep inside your empire’s planets. Coming just after the game’s third anniversary (and celebratory free weekend), it’s all about lost civilisations, precursor races, and those titular ancient relics.

You can find relics either as rewards for completing adventures or by organising archaeological digs. Either way, the relics will give fresh benefits to your empire. Archaeological digs will start stories with up to six chapters to complete before you get your ancient rewards. You’ll dig up minor artefacts as well, which will serve as a new resource type that can power up your empire.

You’ll also find clues about two precursor races – the psionic Zroni, and the plantlike hivemind of the Baol. You’ll eventually visit their homeworlds to see what went wrong, and you’ll visit a set of dead relic worlds, too – and, naturally, there are plenty of relics, artefacts, and other helpful secrets amid all your troubles.

Check out the trailer below for a little flavour, or see all the details on the Steam page.

Ancient Relics is currently set for a vague ‘coming soon’ release, but you likely won’t have to wait too long before it actually launches.

Read more: Check out the best 4X games on PC

We talked to the folks at Paradox about developing Stellaris just a few days ago, so if you’re looking for more on how we got this strategic space opera, you can follow that link.