Stellaris: Grand Archive review – Gotta catch ‘em all

It’s hard to believe that there are some aspects of science fiction that Paradox Interactive doesn’t have covered in Stellaris yet – however, over eight years after its initial release, the developer still has some amazing additions to the grand strategy game in store, as its latest DLC proves. Grand Archive, the newest Story Pack for Stellaris, adds a vital element to the title – a Pokémon mini-game. Thanks to the new Beastmaster civic and Domestication tradition tree, you can use your science ship to cast massive nets and catch space whales, space amoeba, and the other critters that roam the great void. This gives your science ships a more active role and, crucially, fills your Vivarium with fresh specimens of galactic fauna. You can then either ruthlessly cull the beasts to gain additional resources or breed them – and a neat auto-culling tool allows you to automate this entire system, once you’ve got it going. Several rarities of each creature exist with rarer specimens providing more resources when cull