Nexus 5X: That's why the implementation was “not as difficult as it initially seemed”

At its core, Nexus 5X, which was originally known as Stellaris Nexus, was intended to incorporate 4X elements known from Stellaris into a fast-paced game whose games could be played in just under an hour.

And according to the development studio Whatboy Games, that was “not as difficult as it initially seemed”.

Were there any challenges?

“We were heavily inspired by tabletop games and some of the earliest 4X games, such as the first Civilization,” explains game director Adam Doherty in an interview with Eurogamer.de.

“We analyzed them and extracted the really important decisions you have to make. What to research, what to build in each city, when to wage war, and so on. What we realized is that there actually aren't that many decisions in a complete game.”

Rather, most of the time is spent waiting: “This gave us the impression that the game would work in a short period of time. We focused on a few important features and tried to compress these decisions into a much shorter period of time.”

“The edict system is doubly important. First, it reverses the usual waiting period associated with research or construction. You have to wait for an edict to appear, but once it does, the effect is triggered immediately.”

This also limits the number of possible actions in a round. Since players don't always have every option available to them, they make decisions more quickly.

“In terms of design and coding, we wanted to ensure that the rounds were truly simultaneous,” he explains. “Whether it's empire growth or warfare, players or AI take their actions independently of each other, so you never have to wait for the other empires.”

Hardly any problems with implementation

According to Doherty, there were no ideas or concepts that couldn't be implemented because they didn't fit the fast gameplay of Nexus 5X.

“Some of the features took a while to get right,” he says. “With the shorter playing time, for example, there was a good opportunity to make the espionage system more effective. This means players have more devious ways to achieve their goals without ruining someone else's game.”

“Getting this right while everything else moves at our desired pace took a while. But at the end of the day, we think our solution makes sneak attacks just as entertaining and impactful as warfare.”

Multi-stage exploration events or quests were also once planned. However, according to Doherty, the conclusion was that the game does not gain much from this to justify the additional complexity per round.

“We've always focused first and foremost on how a feature in the game enables or encourages interactions between players, both in the game itself and in the chat,” he explains.

Nexus 5X has been available on PC since April 18, 2024.