Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter

Kerberos Productions · Dec 1, 2012

Teen

About

In the sequel to the critically hailed 4X space epic Sword of the Stars, gamers become reaquianted with the original six races from Swords of the Stars I and its expansions as as they discover the dark secret of the original series, the Suul'ka – an ancient race that is responsible for tampering with the Liir, Zuul, and other races in the SotS universe! Sword of the Stars II offers a major step forward in the approach to 4X gameplay, taking the easy-to-learn-hard-to-master philosophy set out in the first game and following that path to a new standard in space strategy games.

Trailers & screenshots

Scores by platform

PC

Critic 3.7 (5 critics) · Gamer 4.4

Critic reviews

PC Gamer
Tom Senior · Dec 18, 2011
4.3
It's a dangerously unstable game, too. I reviewed it after a couple of patches, but still had hours of progress erased by a crash on the way to the saving screen. Even when the bugs are exorcised, you'll have to wrestle with that terrible interface. Better to consider this one lost in space. Try the Sword of the Stars Complete Edition instead.
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GameSpot
Gamespot Staff · Dec 14, 2011
3.0
Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter should never have been released in this condition. It's a shame that more than a month and a half since its debut, Sword of the Stars II is still in an unstable, difficult-to-play state. The greatest shame, however, is that while Sword of the Stars II isn't that much fun to play, it possesses the spark that could have ignited something great.
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IGN
Jon Michael · Nov 21, 2011
2.5
Sword of the Stars II is in love with its own history and story, to the point where its encyclopedia favors dozens of background entries over any sort of gameplay information. It may be just as well, because seven patches later, the game is still broken in so many places that it will be tough to find any consistency. There are many other 4X games on the market that do basically everything SotS2 intended, but better and without the bugs.
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Game Informer
Adam Biessener · Nov 08, 2011
3.0
That’s a good session with Sword of the Stars II; most of them end far sooner with me physically angry at the ubiquitous interface lag, nearly useless manual, a random event that blows up one of my colonies with no warning, or some other frustration. I love the ideas at play here, but the horrific implementation adds complexity and obfuscation with little commensurate gain in strategic depth.
Game Watcher
Joe Robinson · Nov 15, 2011
5.5
History tells us that, eventually, Sword of the Stars II is going to be great - possibly even amazing. Play the original game now and you'll find it a wonderful sci-fi strategy romp... although legend tells us that it's own release wasn't fantastic either. At the moment, SOTS2 is playable, but not really enjoyable - some tech-trees aren't fully implemented, features are incomplete or turned off (we don't anything is out-right missing but... at the moment, it's really hard to tell) and it's just a little bit boring right now.
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