Development roadmap

Eight scenarios, independent mid- and late-game settings, warning periods, shared response projects, and saved crisis state.

Five galaxy presets from 200 to 15,000 systems, a 15,000-unit limit per empire, and generation changes for uninhabitable worlds and asteroid belts.

Government forms, ruler candidates, governors, laws, doctrines, reforms, faith links, and AI participation are implemented.

The AI economy and expansion milestone is complete, covering colony development, resource spending, and peacetime expansion.

The fleet decision-making and war-outcomes milestone is complete, covering force allocation, reinforcement, conquest, and recovery.

Large-campaign performance work is complete for the Early Access milestone.

The multiplayer campaign validation milestone is complete for Early Access, covering LAN and Steam campaign play.

Campaign balance and playtest work is complete for the Early Access milestone.

Four new governments and three new faiths, an Industry ethics axis with Industrialist and Ecologist ethics, faith chosen by ethic affinity at the start of a campaign, AI empires that change faith when another fits better, and an in-game way to replace one held ethic with another for Influence.

A planner for multi-fleet operations: pick a target from the map, set staging points, assemble forces, check readiness, then save, begin, pause or end the operation. Refused orders now report back through COMMS.

Technologies, ships, empires, events, politics, tuning tables, hints and tutorial text now load from JSON that mods can add to or replace, with named values, a mod manager that reports overrides and warnings, and a published modding guide with example mods.

Two new selectable shipsets, BULWARK and LUMEN, and mesh level of detail that cuts far ships to a few hundred triangles. A dense 200-battleship fleet renders about 11 times faster.

AI empires now fight their neighbours in earnest: they build coalitions against a rival they cannot beat alone, open a second front when bold enough, field stealth raiders, and keep ship designs current by refitting fleets. A new-game rule lets the AI plan with visible fleets only. In internal AI stress tests, wars in progress rose from 2 to 15 and systems taken in war from 3 to 11.

Fixes for deselecting and multi-selecting units, route lines and range rings that follow the drawn ships, ships that no longer overlap in formation, interface flicker and rounder galaxy fog, plus planet panorama art on the expansion screen.

The engine sound system and the in-game audio service are implemented, with interface, COMMS and combat cues and situational music. OGG music streaming is being added, and final music and sound effects are still being made.

Publishing and updating mods from the game, subscribing, and showing missing mods in multiplayer lobbies work. Two-account multiplayer testing is still to do, and the Workshop opens to everyone at the Early Access launch.

The new-player systems are implemented and checked in a live campaign: a first-steps checklist, contextual tips from the economy to late-game systems, and a tips setting on the new-campaign screen. The diplomacy screens are being consolidated, with one route per action, a combined contact file and consistent wording. Layout and test passes remain ahead of Early Access.

A species designer and portraits built from parts appear in contacts, diplomacy, commerce, the empire creator and the government and succession screens, and empire leaders are built from the same parts. Portrait art and polish are still in progress.

Orion launches in Early Access on Steam on 14 December 2026.

Expand Orion’s game content during the first quarter of 2027.

Explore connected situations built from consistent campaign facts, with saved history, meaningful choices, and a complete offline path after Early Access launches.

Release Orion version 0.5 in the fourth quarter of 2027.