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Key facts
- Cheapest right now
- € Standard · Steam Key · Global · Difmark Digital Keys
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- 46 offers · 17 stores
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Stellaris 4.5, the update known as Cygnus, came out on 22 September, and patch 4.5.2 followed on 6 October. It comes with the base game, so if you already own Stellaris you don't have to buy anything to get it. Maybe you dropped the game a while back and are wondering whether to return, or maybe you've never played it. Either way, here's what's different, in plain terms, and what it costs to get in this morning.
Pops no longer belong to a single ethic
Until now every group of pops in your empire had one ethic and that was that: these ones are militarist, those ones xenophile. In 4.5 a pop group splits its support across several ethics, in percentages. A group can be mostly materialist and still give part of its weight to pacifism, say, and those shares shift over the course of a game.
Factions work the same way now. The upshot is that pops change ethic and faction far more often than they used to, so the politics inside your empire rarely settle.
Your 4.4 saves won't load properly
Here's the catch for anyone with a campaign in progress: saves from 4.4 or earlier don't load properly in 4.5. Steam keeps a 4.4 beta branch for exactly this. In your library, right-click Stellaris, go to Properties → Betas and pick the 4.4 branch from the drop-down. Steam downloads that version and you can finish your game, then switch back to the current one from the same menu.
Starting a new game? Then none of this affects you.
Federation laws now hand out treaties
Keeping diplomacy going takes less work. Federation laws can now grant trade pacts, Wayline pacts or research agreements at no cost, and in a Trade League federation the members receive them automatically.
The Federation Code also cuts the influence upkeep of diplomacy by 25%. If you used to run dry on influence as soon as you had a handful of agreements open, you'll notice the difference.
Can you leave ship design to the game now?
Plenty of players never open the ship designer and just use the automatic designs. Cygnus gives them a say in what those designs look like. A new Fleet Doctrine policy offers six tactical roles for the auto-designs to follow, and two more policies, Weapon Preference and Defence Preference, set which weapons and defences you favour. Those choices steer the automatic designs, and your research as well.
On top of that, the update brings more than 350 fixes and AI improvements.
What patch 4.5.2 adjusted
Armour used to cost twice as much to maintain as a shield of the same tier. Since 4.5.2 the upkeep is the same for both. Defence platforms now have their own weapon and defence preferences, and a bug that left fleets stuck in combat has been fixed.
How much does it cost to get into Stellaris today?
You don't need any DLC for Cygnus. The expansions are sold separately and some of the game's mechanics build on them, but the changes above arrive with the base game. This is what the base game costs this morning:
| Format | Store | With coupon | With fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam Key | Difmark | €8.85 (Gocdkeys) | €9.25 |
| Steam Key | HRKGame | €8.65 (Gocdkeys12) | €9.64 |
| Steam Key | Gamivo | €8.49 (GCDKGamivo) | €9.78 |
| Steam Key | Kinguin | €9.07 (OCTGOC10) | €10.14 |
| Steam Key | GamersGate | €12.00, no coupon | €12.00 (no fees) |
| GOG Key | Gamivo | €12.92 (GCDKGamivo) | €14.36 |
| GOG Key | GOG | €14.99, no coupon | €14.99 (no fees) |
Once fees are counted, Difmark has the cheapest Steam Key: €8.85 with the Gocdkeys coupon, €9.25 in total. Gamivo has the lowest price before fees, €8.49 with GCDKGamivo, but its fees push it up to €9.78.
The GOG Key is DRM-free and you activate it in GOG Galaxy rather than on Steam. Bear in mind that the GOG version can take longer to receive patches. You'll find every offer on the page to buy Stellaris key for PC.
As for timing, it's not a great moment. The median price of a Stellaris Steam Key in our history is €7.89 (our historical figures don't include fees), and today's cheapest, €8.85, sits 12% above it. It has been cheaper on 305 of the 457 days we've tracked, and its lowest ever, €2.19, goes back years. If you're not in a hurry, set a price alert for Stellaris and we'll email you when it drops.
Prices checked on the morning of 22 October.
Buying guides and price comparisons written alongside live prices from the stores verified by GOCDKEYS.