Distant Worlds: Universe on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
Distant Worlds is a vast, pausable real-time 4X space strategy game. Experience the full depth and detail of turn-based strategy, but with the simplicity and ease of real-time, and on the scale of a massively-multiplayer online game.
Distant Worlds: Universe is a strategy, 4x and space game
developed by Code Force
and published by Slitherine Ltd..
Released on May 23rd 2014 is available in English only on Windows.
It has received 1,815 reviews of which 1,375 were positive and 440 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.3 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 28.99€ on Steam, but you can find it for 2.24€ on Instant Gaming.
The Steam community has classified Distant Worlds: Universe into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Distant Worlds: Universe through various videos and screenshots.
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8, 10
- Processor: Pentium 4 @1.5 GHz
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: minimum 1024 x 768 resolution, 32 bit
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 1 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX 9 compatible
- Additional Notes: Requires Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Well what can I say. I had this game in my library for a couple of years reluctant to start playing as it seemed overwhelming. Boy was I wrong and wish I'd started earlier. Everything can be adjusted to your playstyle. Heck you can even automate everything and just explore the galaxy Star Trek style. To get the game to run on win 11 just go to the setup ini file and change the intro video to 0 rather than 1 so that it skips the video at the start avoiding a crash.
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For all those who encounter a crash on startup: try editing startup.ini in the game folder. Change "Play Movie 1" to "Play Movie 0". After putting more than 750 hours into this game over more than 10 years, I am finally ready to write a review. This is it. The space 4x strategy game that I keep coming back to among all the others. I have played Stellaris, Sins of a Solar Empire, Masters of Orion, StarDrive, Endless Space, even space 4x games as far back as Spaceward Ho! and Stars!, which probably gives away my age. I've even played through Distant Worlds 2 (though not since some major updates were made). None of them keep me coming back time and again like Distant Worlds Universe. The graphics are 2D, and fairly simple by today's standards. The UI is complex and often difficult to understand. The learning curve is very steep. Planet management is a bit lighter and less involved than other space 4X games. With such a huge barrier for new players, why then do I put it at my #1 spot? I have a lot of reasons. Grand Scale: Galaxies can have up to 1500 stars, each with their own system of planets, asteroid fields, resources, ancient artifacts, ruins, and the occasional primitive civilization. Sprinkled between those stars are anomalies, space monsters, abandoned star bases, derelict ships (which you can repair or salvage for research), a rich history of a galactic war that happened centuries ago, and a looming threat of the return of a savage species. Control Customization: You can take full control and micromanage every little detail throughout the game. Or, you can handle a single starship flying around the galaxy while the AI handles everything else in your empire. Or anything in between. Heroes: Leader (one per faction), ship captains, fleet admirals, planet governors, scientists, spies, ambassadors. Each with their own set of perks and drawbacks. Some scientists might be very skilled in one or more areas of research, but might also be a foreign spy, which gives other factions a much greater chance of stealing research from you. A fleet admiral might be an excellent tactician, leading to greater targeting accuracy and damage, but might also be a drunkard, leading to slower hyper drive speed and greater ship maintenance costs. Espionage: Distant Worlds Universe has the most involved, compelling, and choice-rich espionage system of any space 4X I've played. Each mission requires that you send one of your hero spies (no nameless, disposable spies in this game!), and a mission failure is a very real loss--if your spy is captured, he's gone for good, along with all of the work you've put into carefully developing his skills. And if your last spy is lost, then you are unable to perform any espionage missions until a new agent appears! Ship Design: I've seen many different ship designers in space 4x games. Some are decent, some feel really dumbed-down (I'm looking at YOU, Endless Space!). But Distant Worlds and StarDrive have by far my favorite ship design mechanics. You can design a ship literally any way you want! You can create a flying fuel cell with barely enough hull to protect the crew from the void of space, designed to speed out and scout distant areas while still making it back with any fuel to spare. You can create colony ships with double capacity to give you a head-start in a new colony. How about a missile boat that deliberately stays at long range to pelt enemies with a shower of long-range missiles? (Yes, you can give each ship class specific directives on how to behave when encountering enemies.) Design star bases, construction platforms, research facilities, resort hotels (yes, your people need entertainment too!), mining outposts, deep space observatories (for spying on enemy factions or getting early-warning notice when enemy fleets are inbound), and orbital defense platforms to help protect your colonies from surprise invasions. Just like with ship design, base design is wide open as to what components you want to put into each base type. Scientific Research: There are three entirely different research sections: Weapons/Armor/Tactics, Energy/Construction, and High Tech/Science. You can conduct one research project from each of them simultaneously. The speed at which they are researched depends on the size of your population, along with the specific skills of your scientist heroes and how much research "capacity" you have constructed (in the form of research facilities). Exploration: With a vast galaxy, limited fuel, and warp speed requiring research before use, in the early game just exploring your own starting solar system is exciting, as you discover what resources are available and try to find that oh-so-elusive "warp field precursors" data left on one of your system's planets by the few survivors of a centuries-old galactic war. Early research advancements in fuel capacity, engine thrust, and directional thrust are critical in how efficiently you explore and exploit the resources available in your home system. By the time you are ready to leave the cradle and travel to nearby stars, exploration starts all over again with your first barely warp-capable scouts travelling and discovering critical fuel-resources in order to extend your empire's reach. In fact, exploration is viable and fun throughout the early- and mid-game, and by the time you hit end-game, your scout ships' purposes shift to being deep-space scanners to be able to see through the fog of war. I could go on: Race variety. Diplomacy. Resource mining/management. Planet-destroying super weapons. Fuel management. Race-unique win conditions. This game is a dream for those who love this genre. Buy this game. Have the patience and courage to get past the obtuse user interface and complex game mechanics, and you will find a gem of a game where I, after more than a decade of play later, am still learning new things.
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An incredible 4x sci-fi simulation and easily one of the greatest games ever made. Distant Worlds Universe is living galaxy with a dynamic economy and many interesting races to contend with in a huge immersive sandbox. For your empire you can manually control every little decision or let the AI control as many things for you as you like. Distant Worlds 1 was a good game when it first came out in the 00s. But rather than stagnate at being good for it's time, it just kept getting better and better over the years with the passion of it's (solo) developer Erik Rutins and the small but dedicated community of modders. I am extremely thankful to both, because to my knowledge there's just nothing else out there in it's genre (4X space strategy) with the depth of its simulation. The exhaustiveness of the simulation in this game is something else. For example: when resources are mined, then moved from a mining station to one of your starports and then stocked to be used or sold, individual transport ships (managed by the private sector) actually carry the discrete capacity that's moving around and are using discrete energy (usually Caslon, a resource) while they do so. If a transport is destroyed the carried capacity doesn't make it to the destination. Another example: the energy generated at any point of time by solar panels on an installation (station, base, ship etc) depends on it's distance at a particular time from the nearest star. And of course, you can customize designs of individual installations down to their components, for instance in how many solar panels you want. These were just two examples out of countless. This level of complexity means you'll be pulling up the in-game manual often when you start playing, but your reward is a game that's incredibly immersive and emergent. The vanilla un-modded game is beautiful deep down inside, but does not look so nice on the surface. The game becomes gorgeous both inside and outside with mods and is a must-play with them. For mods I use Distant Worlds Universe Refreshed (DWUR), which I overwrite by Das Chrome Mods 1.5b (DCM) (I overwrite all except \images\ui\flagshapes, which I merge and rename instead of overwriting and follow up by manually deleting flags that I find un-immersive). DWUR claims to incorporate DCM, but leaves out many good parts (a lot of UI elements) and incorporates a bunch of flag designs that look out-of-place. However, this is a matter of taste and if you're just starting out you could just use DWUR without my gymnastics and make any changes that you want to later when you feel more comfortable doing so. Mods as well as how-to guides can be found on Matrix Games's Distant Worlds 1 Design and Modding forums.
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Love this game, although I just recently got it to run on Steam. I'm old-school and love the depth of older games - unlike the playschool crap they put out these days. For those having issue, I have a windows 10 machine. Went through the 'pinned' troubleshooting guide, which was useless. Found someone's comment about finding the game's Startup.ini and setting playmovie from 1 to 0. That was it, works like a charm. Hope this helps someone. Update - I've downloaded and installed the recommended mods that you'll find throughout the reviews. They are awesome updates to the original. Makes the game even more enjoyable. I completely recommend so far.
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Distant Worlds seems to have a better ship design system than Distant Worlds 2. You have more flexibility in number of weapon systems allowed per ship. DW2 locks you in and limits your flexibility, even so, I enjoy and recommend both games.
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Last Updates| Steam data | 08 April 2025 13:12 |
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| SteamSpy data | 09 April 2025 21:31 |
| Steam price | 14 April 2025 20:43 |
| Steam reviews | 14 April 2025 00:04 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Distant Worlds: Universe, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Distant Worlds: Universe
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Distant Worlds: Universe concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Distant Worlds: Universe compatibility
Online players
13
Developer
Code Force
Publisher
Slitherine Ltd.
Release
23 May 2014
Platforms
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