Distant Worlds: Universe

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 1,805 reviews of which 1,370 were positive and 435 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.3 out of 10. 😊

The game is currently priced at 2.89€ on Steam and has a 90% discount.

The Steam community has classified Distant Worlds: Universe into these genres:

Strategy 4X Space Sci-fi Simulation Grand Strategy Singleplayer Real-Time RTS Real-Time with Pause Moddable Sandbox 2D Indie Adventure Replay Value Epic Management

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Distant Worlds: Universe through various videos and screenshots.

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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

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Dec. 2024

Original approach to 4x genre. You can automate almost everything and still it is satisfying to play.

Sept. 2024

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.

Sept. 2024

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.

Aug. 2024

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.

July 2024

I still come back to play this game from time to time. I love the art style and how it plays in general. I've tried Distant Worlds 2, but I sadly did not enjoy it. The game has a tall learning curve, but when or if you overcome that, it turns into a really fun game. I myself like to play this game slowly, controlling most of the game with little automation except for a few need-to's.

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