Stellaris: Necroids Species Pack Review Summary

Excellent cosmetics and value shine through the Necrophage origin, but it disappoints with lackluster novelty, poor integration, balance issues, and persistent bugs.

Excellent cosmetics and art: The DLC's cosmetics, including ship sets, portraits, and city designs, are highly praised for their quality and atmospheric design. Players appreciate the variety and detail, with some calling it the best shipset in the game.

Good value and content: Players generally find the DLC to be a good value, offering substantial content for its price, especially when purchased on sale. It is considered better than other species packs like Lithoids, with high replayability and solid cosmetic assets.

Necrophage origin is highlight: The Necrophage origin is a standout feature, providing unique early-game mechanics like fast pop growth, strong colonization, and conversion of pops. It enables new playstyles and synergizes well with other origins like Lithoids, though some note it can be powerful.

New civics add fun mechanics: New civics like Death Cult, Reanimated Armies, and Memorialists add fresh mechanics and are fun to use. Memorialists provide easy stability bonuses, and Reanimators allow resurrecting leviathans, which players find awesome.

Great roleplay potential: The DLC offers strong roleplay potential, especially for xenophobe or undead-themed empires. Players enjoy creating cool races and exploring new gameplay-lore opportunities, with humorous combinations possible.

Disappointing and lacks novelty: Overall, the DLC is seen as disappointing, boring, and lacking novelty. It fails to deliver on the necromancy theme, feels like a reskin of existing content, and does not significantly change gameplay. Many players recommend skipping it or using mods instead.

Poor integration and balance: The DLC's mechanics are poorly integrated with the base game, causing balance issues, negative interactions with existing systems, and logical inconsistencies (e.g., undead needing food). Many features feel shoehorned or broken.

Necrophage origin clunky and tedious: The Necrophage origin is criticized for being clunky, requiring excessive micromanagement, and imposing severe population growth penalties (-75%). It forces manual resettlement and constant pop conversion, making it tedious and frustrating to play.

Overpriced for value: Many players feel the DLC is overpriced for what it offers, with some suggesting it should cost significantly less or be part of the base game. The price-to-content ratio is seen as poor, especially compared to other Stellaris DLCs.

Numerous persistent bugs: Numerous bugs are reported, including sound notification issues, game crashes when using shift-click, loading screen freezes, and Necrophyte jobs stopping. Some bugs have persisted for months without fixes, and developer responses have been unsatisfactory.

Necrophage conversion mechanics: The Necrophage origin enables converting other species into your primary species via a special purge type or Necrophyte jobs, with an event every 10 years. It provides fast pop acquisition and snowballing potential but requires careful management of ethics and traits.

Cosmetic-focused DLC: The Necroids DLC is primarily a cosmetic and flavor pack, adding new portraits, ship models, city appearances, and an advisor voice. It includes a few civics and one origin, but is not a major gameplay expansion.

Reanimators undead armies: The Reanimators civic allows resurrection of leviathans and creation of undead armies immune to morale damage. However, the special army has weak combat characteristics and requires military academy tech to build.

Pop conversion mechanics: Necroid gameplay revolves around converting subservient species into necroids via special buildings like the Chamber of Elevation, which converts up to 3 pops per planet every 10 years. Assimilation retains the species' power status after conversion.

Growth and productivity penalties: Necrophage origins cause significant penalties: primary species reproduction rate is reduced by 75%, workers are less productive, and pop growth is slowed. This makes the early game very difficult and requires manual resettlement of pops.

30% loading screen freeze: A significant bug causes the game to get stuck at 30% loading, preventing players from accessing the game entirely.

Shift key crash bug: The game crashes when the player holds the shift key to assign multiple tasks simultaneously, disrupting workflow and causing frustration.

Optimization improvements noted: Recent updates have improved optimization, including faster startup times and better handling of multi-line task allocation, enhancing overall performance.

Wait for a sale: Many players advise waiting for a sale before purchasing this DLC, with specific price points like $5 or 50-60% off mentioned. The consensus is that the content does not justify the full price.

Recommended for niche players: This DLC is recommended for specific player types, such as fans of Stellaris, roleplayers, those who enjoy necroid/xenophobe themes, or advanced players. It offers unique mechanics and cosmetics that appeal to niche interests.

Not recommended overall: A significant number of reviews strongly advise against buying this DLC, citing reasons such as high price for limited content, bugs, and better alternatives. Some explicitly say 'do not buy' or 'strongly do not recommend'.

Optional and not essential: Several reviews indicate the DLC is optional, not essential, or only okay for the price. It can be avoided or is only suitable for certain playstyles like roleplaying.

Bugs and patch issues: Some reviews warn about bugs or compatibility issues, particularly with the 4.0 update, and suggest waiting for patches or playing on older versions. The current state is not recommended.

Community fair range: $5.00 - $8.00.

Session length: 1.5h.

The Necroids DLC offers powerful early-game snowballing through the necrophage origin and pop sacrifice mechanics, but arbitrary empire restrictions and inefficiency malices create friction, delaying the fun until players find effective workarounds.

Friction: Cannot create gestalt consciousness or xenophile empires; Slow growth and inefficiency malices from early restrictions; Pop conversion clashes with many empire types; Civics and origin feel underdeveloped compared to potential.

Unlock drivers: Necrophage origin for fast early pop growth; Nihilistic Acquisition for stealing pops; Death Cult civic for sacrificing pops to get massive bonuses; Upgraded buildings providing +30 stability without pops.

Roleplay-First Storyteller: Creates thematic empires with detailed backstories, focuses on narrative and flavor over pure efficiency. Motivation: Immersive storytelling and thematic roleplay. Stance: buy.

Mechanics-Focused Optimizer: Experiments with new civics, origins, and mechanics; optimizes builds and seeks strategic depth. Motivation: Strategic depth and new build possibilities. Stance: sale.

Price-Conscious Pragmatist: Waits for discounts, evaluates cost vs. content, and may be aware of bugs but still enjoys the game. Motivation: Value for money and avoiding buyer's remorse. Stance: deep sale.

Steam Deck: User feedback for Stellaris: Necroids Species Pack highlights severe issues with the Necrophage origin after the 4.0 update, including game-breaking bugs and a nerf that makes it nearly unplayable. The DLC also requires significant tinkering to make the origin work. These problems translate to poor Steam Deck compatibility, as stability is compromised and extensive setup is needed.

Linux and Proton: The filtered user feedback contains no Linux/Proton compatibility information. The only review discusses a general gameplay grievance about a game update, which is irrelevant to the assessment. Hence, the game is assumed to work without Linux-specific issues.

Monetization: User reviews predominantly complain about the DLC being overpriced and lacking content, with some criticism of misleading store page descriptions. However, there is zero evidence of predatory in-game monetization such as pay-to-win, gacha, loot boxes, or currency obfuscation. The complaints are entirely about the base price and value of the DLC itself, which per the scoring rules cannot push the score above 20. Therefore, the monetization model is fair, with no predatory elements.