How many hours does it take to justify warning someone they’ll never return from a game recommendation?
6,000 hours, apparently. That’s how long Al has played Stellaris—one of the best 4X games ever made and simultaneously one of gaming’s most effective social life deletion tools. Tim recommended it to Ian anyway. The immediate response was concern: “My only concern is that we will never see you again.” Ian’s counter: “I hope this doesn’t awaken something in me.” It absolutely will. Stellaris doesn’t just consume time—it creates an alternative reality where galactic empire management feels more important than sleep, work, or human relationships. The 6,000-hour figure isn’t an outlier. It’s a warning about what happens when a grand strategy game is executed so well that stopping feels impossible.
What 4X Actually Means
4X stands for Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate—the four pillars defining the grand strategy subgenre. The term was coined by a UK journalist reviewing Masters of Orion in the early 1990s and spawned an entire category of games where you build civilisations from a single settlement to galaxy-spanning empires. Stellaris applies this formula to space exploration where you start with one planet, a specific alien race with chosen characteristics, and a galaxy-sized sandbox to conquer, diplomatically absorb, or exterminate depending on your chosen playstyle.
The exploration phase involves sending science ships to survey systems, discovering habitable planets, anomalies requiring investigation, and neighbouring civilisations with their own agendas. The expansion follows through colonising planets, building starbases, and establishing borders. Exploitation comes through resource management, building economies, and developing technologies. Extermination arrives when neighbours prove hostile, ideologically incompatible, or simply occupy planets you want. The cycle repeats across an increasingly larger scale until you control a substantial portion of the galaxy or achieve specific victory conditions.
The framework sounds simple but the implementation creates depth that justifies 6,000-hour investments. Each phase contains systems complex enough to support entire games. The exploration includes archaeology sites, precursor civilisations, leviathans requiring late-game fleets to defeat, and events that fundamentally alter your empire. The expansion requires managing sprawl penalties, habitability ratings, and strategic resource access. The exploitation involves intricate economic webs where energy credits, minerals, alloys, consumer goods, and research points all interact. The extermination demands fleet composition, weapon loadouts, tactical doctrine, and diplomatic consequences.
The Paradox DLC Problem
The Stellaris base game costs $34.99 normally but regularly goes under £10 on sale. That’s the accessible entry point. The complete experience—every DLC, expansion, and species pack Paradox has released over 10 years—costs approximately $400. The price creates an immediate barrier where new players face a choice between the limited base game or spending AAA game console money on the complete version of a single PC title. The comparison to The Sims 4’s £1,400 complete price tag provides small comfort because “less exploitative than The Sims” isn’t a high bar to clear.
Paradox’s defence is that the base game receives free updates whenever paid DLC releases, meaning many features become available without purchasing expansions. The espionage systems, planet rework, and pop growth changes all entered the base game despite being developed alongside paid DLC. However, the meaningful content—new origins, civics, ship types, and story packs—remains locked behind paywalls. Playing the base game provides a functional experience but the full Stellaris requires substantial financial investment beyond the initial purchase.
The subscription option offers an alternative at $10 monthly for access to all content whilst subscribed. This works for players wanting to trial the complete game or who play intensively for a few months before moving on. However, the subscription model means you never own the content and lose access when payments stop. The maths favours the subscription for short-term play but ownership becomes cheaper for anyone playing beyond 40 months. Given that 6,000-hour investments exist, ownership makes more financial sense for the players Stellaris captures completely.
Why People Disappear
The time consumption comes from two sources: individual playthrough length and infinite replayability through different empire types. A single game can easily consume 30-50 hours depending on galaxy size, crisis difficulty, and victory pursuit. However, the replayability stems from customisation options that fundamentally change how games play. A xenophobic militarist empire plays nothing like a pacifist federation builder or a devouring swarm consuming all biomass. Machine intelligence, hive mind, and megacorporation empires each have unique mechanics creating distinct experiences.
The empire designer alone can consume hours before starting the actual game. Choosing species traits, ethics, civics, and origin creates starting conditions that dictate viable strategies and playstyles. Pacifists can only fight defensive wars, requiring a fundamentally different diplomatic approach than aggressive warmongers. Xenophobes suffer penalties from alien pops whilst gaining bonuses from homogeneous populations. The combinations create scenarios where you’re planning a second playthrough before finishing the first because you’ve already imagined how a different empire type would handle situations you encountered.
The emergent storytelling also hooks players through creating narratives that feel personal rather than scripted. Discovering that a neighbouring empire shares your ethics creates a natural alliance. Finding that they’re fanatical purifiers who want to exterminate all other life creates an existential threat requiring complete military mobilisation. The stories write themselves through interactions between AI empires following their programmed personalities whilst reacting to your actions. The investment in your created empire and the stories that emerge from galactic politics creates an attachment that makes stopping difficult.
The Challenge Run Rabbit Hole
Stellaris supports challenge runs limiting normal gameplay advantages to create artificial difficulty. One planet challenges require winning whilst never expanding beyond the starting world. One system challenges allow colonising within the home system but prohibit expanding further. These constraints force creative solutions using vassalisation, federation building, and economic maximisation to compete against empires that expanded normally. YouTubers like Montu have built audiences around these challenges, demonstrating that experienced players can win under absurd restrictions.
The challenge runs also provide goals for players who’ve completed standard victories. After conquering the galaxy as a normal empire, trying to achieve the same outcome with one planet creates an entirely new puzzle requiring different strategies and approaches. The artificial limitations create replay value beyond just choosing different empire ethics or civics. The community around these challenges shares strategies, optimises builds, and discovers exploits that enable victories that shouldn’t be possible under the imposed restrictions.
What Ian Is Getting Into
Tim’s recommendation to Ian specifically targets someone who enjoys challenge runs and deep mechanical systems. Ian mentioned loving knife-only runs in shooters and appreciating games offering multiple approach options. Stellaris provides this through empire customisation, multiple victory paths, and systems complex enough to support creative solutions. The risk is that Ian’s appreciation for deep systems combines with Stellaris’s addictive empire management to create a situation where he genuinely doesn’t return from the recommendation.
The barrier to entry is real. Stellaris isn’t a pick-up-and-play experience like Boltgun where you press start and shoot things. The tutorial explains the basics but understanding economic chains, pop management, fleet composition, and diplomatic mechanics requires a time investment before the game becomes enjoyable rather than overwhelming. However, the show notes indicate Ian is “capable of thought” and has demonstrated a willingness to engage with complex systems when they’re rewarding. Stellaris rewards that engagement more thoroughly than most games.
The modding community also extends the lifetime through Steam Workshop providing thousands of modifications. Star Trek, Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, and Mass Effect total conversion mods exist alongside balance tweaks, new species, and quality-of-life improvements. The base game can become a starting point for completely different experiences through mod combinations. This extends replayability beyond Paradox’s official content whilst providing free additions that deepen an already substantial game.
The $400 Question
Is Stellaris worth $400? No. Is the base game on sale for under £10 worth trying to see if you’re someone who’ll invest hundreds of hours? Absolutely. The DLC pricing is exploitative but the base game provides enough content to determine whether Stellaris hooks you before committing to expensive DLC purchases. The subscription option also lets you trial the complete experience for a single month at a cost less than most new releases.
The comparison to other time-sink games also matters. MMO subscriptions cost $10-15 monthly and many players maintain them for years. Stellaris doesn’t require an ongoing subscription but provides similar time investment for the players it captures. The DLC purchases function like expansion purchases for MMOs—optional content that enhances the experience for committed players whilst the base game remains functional for everyone. The framing doesn’t excuse the pricing but provides context for why Paradox structures monetisation this way.
Will Ian disappear into Stellaris forever? Probably not forever, but Tim’s warning that “we will never see you again” contains enough truth to be concerning. The 6,000-hour investments don’t happen accidentally. They happen because Stellaris creates a gameplay loop rewarding enough that stopping feels wasteful. Tim unleashed the beast. Episode 10 will reveal whether Ian survived or whether his last words were “just one more turn” before galaxy conquest consumed him completely.
