Summary
As a Paradox Interactive game, players can expectStellaristo havemany downloadable content packagesthat enrich the game further by adding many new intuitive and exciting features, improving quality-of-life, and offering story packs that enhance the already rich lore of the game itself. Furthermore, these DLCs also increase the replayability value of the game, which is great considering that the game was released back in 2016.
Although most of the downloadable content forStellarishas been critically acclaimed and labeled as ‘must-haves,’ there will be some content that is more preferred and praised than others due to many factors, such as its additions to the base game and lore implications.
Updated on August 01, 2025, by Mehrdad Khayyat:Stellaris is one of the most successful strategy games by Paradox Interactive that has been receiving new content updates and expansions for more than a decade now.
The community just loves this game, and the developers never run out of new creative ideas to inject into this experience. Stellaris already has a detailed roadmap for new expansions coming in 2025, but it’s still worth it to overview all that has been released so far.
16Cosmic Storms (Mechanical Expansion)
Steam User Rating: 26% (Out Of 499 Reviews)
Cosmic Storms is the first content drop in 2025, and it’s safe to say that the community just didn’t like what it delivered to the game. Cosmic Storms adds new types of storms to the game’s universe, which causes players new challenges as they need to keep their empires safe.
Storms come in different natures, which makes their effect on the empires and troops different. They can severely interrupt the battles or postpone a player’s plans for the future, but some players just seem not to like what it delivers in the end.
Cosmic Storms is probably too light in the content that it delivers. Other than that, the storms seem to be only useful when the player uses the origin offered with the expansion, and that completely blocks any creative approaches towards this natural phenomenon.
15Astral Planes
Steam User Rating: 28% (Out Of 1,032 Reviews)
Although the Steam user rating might not be impressive,Astral Planescan be defined as aStellarisDLC that is worth acquiring due to its addition of powerful Relics and unique Astral Planes with branching narratives. The new Relics themselves enable the player to enhance their empire to another level, as one of them enables the empire’s leader to become immortal, for example.
Moreover, the explorable Astral Rifts also enable the player to acquire new unique powers in the form of Relics, technologies, and even powerful armies to unleash on the enemy. As a result of exploring these Astral Planes, players will also acquire the means to execute Astral Actions, which are powerful in their own ways as well.
14Nemesis
Steam User Rating: 41% (Out Of 1,544 Reviews)
This particular DLC adds more depth to the politics, gameplay, and endgame for players to try. One of its notable additions was the ‘Become The Crisis’ ascension perk, which allows the player tobecome a Crisis themselvesand attempt to bring an end to the galaxy to “ascend the mortal coil.”
This downloadable content also brings with it new endgame flavors by adding the option to become the ‘Galactic Custodian,’ countering any Crisis that threatens the galaxy, be it an extradimensional hunter or an upstart empire trying to extinguish all life.
13First Contact
Steam User Rating: 43% (Out Of 485 Reviews)
First Contact is one of those story packs that got the community divided. The biggest debate in First Contact is about the new Cloaking tech, which allows ships to survey and gather intel while being unnoticed.
Some players found the device quite overpowered, which made the enemy attacks almost unpredictable and challenging. On the multiplayer side, however, players found Cloaking almost useless, as the tech was too important that all players would focus on discovering it and its counter in the shortest amount of time, which made using it non-beneficial.
Aside from the Cloaking tech, the new origins were widely welcomed by the players, as they introduced some amazing ways to start a new adventure in the space.
12Overlord
Steam User Rating: 50% (Out Of 1,222 Reviews)
Politics inStellarishas always been one of the main focuses that the player wants to engage with, andStellaris: Overlorddoes the trick by adding several new options for players to either befriend or become the ‘overlord’ of their enemies in the galaxy.
New mechanics for diplomacy are added to ensure that the player has several options when engaging with other empires. In addition,new origins for their space-faring civilizationand additional construction options such as Orbital Rings and Quantum Catapults also became the main focus of this DLC.
11MegaCorp
Steam User Rating: 56% (Out Of 1,122 Reviews)
To simulate the ever-growing threat of corporations taking over an entire world or even the galaxy for the sole purpose of profit, Paradox Interactive created the DLCStellaris:MegaCorp. With it, players are able to eitherroleplay as a humongous corporationor a criminal syndicate in the form of government types to gain an upper hand against other empires in the galaxy.
In addition to the new unique government types, the DLC also adds an option for the player to turn an entire planet into an ‘Ecumenopolis,’ a highly efficient and productive planet specialized in developing products at the cost of stripping the planet of its natural resources.
10Galactic Paragons
Steam User Rating: 58% (Out Of 913 Reviews)
Galactic Paragonsadds numerous gameplay revamps that make the game fresh both fornewcomers and returning veteransalike. The new Council Mechanics and Paragons add a new twist to the leader system, which might have been obsolete and tedious in the past.
Furthermore, the DLC also adds several new traditions and civics to increase the variety of gameplay for players to try out when attempting to take control of the whole galaxy for themselves.
9Apocalypse
Steam User Rating: 63% (Out Of 1,456 Reviews)
A slowdown in performance can always be expected inStellarisdue to the increased number of simulated populations and worlds across the galaxy controlled by human players and AI alike. One of the solutions provided by Paradox Interactive was to simply add the option to crack those worlds to gain a huge amount of passive resources with the addition ofStellaris:Apocalypse.
This DLC enables empires in the galaxy to construct a ‘Colossus’ - a planet-killer weapon in the form of a humongous spaceship, while also adding the option to build flagships in the form of ‘Titans’ tolead their fleetin conquering the galaxy.
8Distant Stars (Story Pack)
Steam User Rating: 64% (Out Of 540 Reviews)
TheStellaris:Distant StarsDLC adds several new storylines for players to explore in the form of multiple anomalies and other in-game events. Furthermore, it also adds new random events, like abandoned Gateways that can be reactivated to gain the upper hand when exploring the galaxy.
One of the most praised additions of the DLC would be the L-Clusters, which offer a chance for the player to either unlock a treasure trove of hidden worlds or unleash a deadly mid-game Crisis that could overwhelm the galaxy in a matter of decades.
7Synthetic Dawn (Story Pack)
Steam User Rating: 69% (Out Of 826 Reviews)
It is customary for sentient robots to appear in science fiction, and Paradox Interactive followed that trend by addingStellaris:Synthetic Dawnto enable the option to play as a sentient artificial intelligence, either as determined exterminators or caretakers of their biological predecessors.
This DLC also adds another crisis in the form of Contingency, an ancient malfunctioning artificial intelligence that goes rogue and tries to exterminate all sentient life in the galaxy, be itsynthetic or biological, with the justification of preventing something ‘worse’ coming to pass.
