Hi Everyone!
This Dev diary will cover the different ways that you can play Stellaris Nexus in Early Access from day one, which is today! The game releases in Early Access at 17:00 CET and we're excited to see you on Nexus!
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First, we have the first few missions of our story mode which will tell the story of the galaxy up until the start of the fall of the Tzynn Empire, where our main succession mode begins.
In single player succession, you can jump in and play against a variable number of AI opponents. You can set up the number of empires you wanna play against as well as the difficulty of the AI.
We have a custom multiplayer mode where you can set up servers for your friends and play the type of game you wanna play.
And finally, we have our match mode mode where you can just jump on and play against players from all over the world.
[h2]Single Player Story Mode
[/h2]The single player story mode tells the rise and the fall of the Tzynn Empire taking us through their ascendance, their dominance over the galaxy and ultimately their collapse.

Each of our story missions puts you in the role of one of our many factions, gives you an introduction of their mechanics and abilities and also gives you custom objectives to challenge your knowledge of the game.
[h2]Single Player Succession Mode
[/h2]Succession mode played in single player has you going up against AI opponents in a battle for the galactic crown. The first faction to prove that they're a worthy successor and gain 100 succession points will be crowned the new emperor of the galaxy.

This mode lets you customize your experience so that you can choose the number and type of factions you're playing against, as well as the AI difficulty and even change the length of the game from 60 100 or 100 and 50 succession points. This mode is great for learning new factions or practicing new strategies before jumping back into multiplayer.
[h2]Multiplayer Custom Succession Mode
[/h2]If you want to play Stellaris Nexus against other human players, you've got two options; custom mode and matchmaking.
Custom mode offers very similar options to single player. You can set the number of opponents and game lengths, then you can invite your friends and enemies to fill out those slots.
The core design objective of Stellaris Nexus was to create a deep and fast 4X game. In order to achieve this, the amount of time that you have to take your turn is limited by a turn timer. The duration of the timer can be customized or turned off completely. One of the driving motivations behind the design of Stellaris Nexus was to allow gamers to enjoy a social strategy game together in a compact timeframe regardless of where they live.
[h2]Multiplayer Matchmaking
[/h2]If you want to play against players from around the world, we have a matchmaking mode where you can jump in to go head to head against players of a similar skill. This mode will use the standard game length and turn time options.

So these are the game modes that will be available in Stellaris Nexus in Early Access from day one. So throughout Early Access, we'll be introducing slightly new ways to play, fleshing out our story mode and introducing new content such as factions and leaders from everyone on the team at Whatboy, we're excited to be bringing Stellaris Nexus into Early Access and we're looking forward to seeing you all on the galactic rim.
- The Whatboy Team.