8. Stellaris. 11 best-selling strategy games ever
Table of Contents
- Developer: Paradox Development Studio
- Year: 2016
- Estimated number of copies sold: >3 million
Paradox are real specialists in strategy games, and Stellaris is another example of that – a science-fiction real-time strategy, featuring active pause and RPG elements. Moreover, the game contains elements characteristic of 4X strategies, with gameplay involving exploration of space and building your interplanetary empire either by diplomacy, or force.
Paradox knows how to do strategy games – Hearts of Iron 4 and Europa Universalis 4 reached serious sale results, but according to Steam Spy, this is an effect of free weekends with these titles, and the real number is closer to 2 million.
Meanwhile, the space strategy broke the company's records, becoming the fastest-selling item of the studio – 200,000 copies delivered in the first 24 hours of release. By May 2020, the number reached 3 million. Today it is probably a bit more, but still below 4 million. Interestingly enough, the publisher hasn't been able to release the game in China. Paradox speculates that the reason behind it was the ability to define the type of government of your civilization, including absolute trigger words such as "democracy," or "elections."
