This is VERY exciting news folks. Erik Rutins of Matrix just posted this on Quarter to Three, so I’ll let him tell it.

Hi Everyone,

Some major news today:

Distant Worlds: Universe is the entire Distant Worlds series in one package, including the new Universe expansion which greatly improves moddability (make your own governments, research trees, resources, components, events, etc.) a new Ancient Galaxy storyline that also serves as a reference mod and performance and AI improvements.



It will release on May 23rd through our Online Store as well as, for the first time ever, through Steam. As this includes both the new Universe expansion with greatly expanded modding support and the Ancient Galaxy storyline plus all previous releases, it will give new customers and existing customers a unified installation for future support and modding and a great affordable entry point to the series.



The Steam page is now live along with a brand new Trailer Video:



http://store.steampowered.com/app/261470/

Our own product page is here:

http://www.matrixgames.com/products/…lds.-.Universe

The base price of Distant Worlds: Universe will be $59.99 Download / $69.99 Physical. This represents a significant discount over the previous series bundle. The Physical version is only available through our store and includes an updated and full color printed Distant Worlds series game manual.

For the release, it will be available at a pre-order price of $49.99 Download / $59.99 physical. This will be the pre-order price through Steam. As we don’t do pre-orders through our own store, this will be our release price as well, with a post-release promotional period as with past Distant Worlds releases that allows early adopters to get the game for a lower price, after which it will revert to the permanent $59.99 / $69.99 price level.

We will also be offering existing customers a discount based on what parts of the series they own. It’s a $10 discount per release, so if you own everything that’s been released so far (Distant Worlds + Return of the Shakturi + Legends + Shadows) then during the post-release promotion period, your price to upgrade to Universe would be $9.99 Download or $19.99 Physical ($49.99 or $59.99 – $40 discount for four previous releases). There will be a page on our site where you can get the upgrade discount coupon. This upgrade will be available through our store only, we don’t have a way of doing this through Steam. All you will need to get the upgrade coupon is the serial number for each release.



We’ll be offering Steam keys to customers who upgrade and purchase through our site.

The release will be on May 23rd.

We plan for there to be one more Shadows update, but all future modding/feature/performance improvements will be based on the Universe level.