Distant Worlds - Shadows Expansion

Can you survive the Age of Shadows?

Distant Worlds: Shadows is the highly anticipated third expansion to the critically acclaimed 4X space strategy game. Distant Worlds: Shadows adds incredible new gameplay to the Distant Worlds universe and includes an earlier era in the Distant Worlds timeline, called the Age of Shadows.

Start a new empire before the discovery of hyperspace travel and try to expand into the stars, or play as one of the legendary Pirate factions of the Age of Shadows, competing with new victory conditions to establish an alternate history where the pirates triumphed over the planetary civilizations. The pirate options alone include four completely new playstyles (ranging from Raiders to Smugglers) and new smuggling and mercenary missions. Also included are ship boarding actions and ship and base capture, new Ship Captain characters and pirate raids of planets and space stations.

New gameplay also includes expanded ground combat, with a full new ground combat tech tree, a ground combat resolution screen and multiple different troop types (infantry, armor, planetary defenses and special forces). Ground combat is now animated and resolved from the descent of the first assault pods from orbit to the final battles for planetary control, with new bonuses for combined arms and the effects of the different troop types as well as local space superiority all considered in the outcome.

The expanded tech tree also includes Gravitic Weapons and Tractor Beams as well as additional planetary facilities that allow you more customization on character recruitment.

Distant Worlds: Shadows also includes an updated and improved graphical engine that allows for much better performance in the epic 1,000+ star galaxies that many Distant Worlds fans enjoy. The AI is also much improved, especially in terms of the economy and a new comprehensive difficulty setting should mean that even the most experienced Distant Worlds player will find a challenge in Distant Worlds: Shadows. As usual, modding support has been kept up to date with the new improvements.

With brand new gameplay as well as greatly expanded gameplay for all play styles, Distant Worlds: Shadows is an exciting and essential new addition to the vast, living galaxy of Distant Worlds!

Please note: Distant Worlds – Shadows REQUIRES ownership of Distant Worlds, Distant Worlds: Return of the Shakturi and Distant Worlds: Legends.

Features:

Play as an Empire or a Pirate in the Age of Shadows

Start as a pre-Hyperspace Empire

Start as a Raider, Pirate, Mercenary or Smuggler and play with an entirely space-based faction that can if successful become a planetary empire as well

New Pirate Leader and Pirate Captain characters

Assault pods and ship to ship or base boarding actions, including ship and base capture

Gravitic Weapons and Tractor Beams

New expanded Ground Combat with new troop types and an animated ground battle resolution screen

Infantry, Armor/Mech, Special Forces, Planetary Defense Units

Resolution of the multiple stages of a planetary assault

New Ground Combat technology tree

Expanded and improved Area Weapons

New planetary facilities

Improved AI and new comprehensive difficulty settings

New and Improved higher performance Graphics Engine

Minimum Game Requirements:

OS: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8

CPU: Pentium 4 @1.5 GHz

RAM: 1Gb RAM

Video/Graphics: minimum 1024 x 768 resolution, 32 bit

Sound: DirectX 9 compatible

Hard disk space: approx. 500Mb

CD-Rom: not required, except if installing from CD

DirectX version: 9.0c or later

Peripheral hardware: Mouse

Anything else that is needed: Microsoft .Net Framework 4.0 or later, XNA 4.0 (included in installer)