Matrix Games Forums

Welcome back explorers, 

To celebrate the first anniversary of Distant Worlds 2, we are excited to announce that Ikkuro & Dhayut, the first DLC of Distant Worlds 2, will be released on March 16th. 

The Galaxy expands and for the first time since the release of Distant Worlds 2, two new playable factions are joining the game: the peaceful Ikkuro and the devious Dhayut!

The Ikkuro are focused on happiness, growth and harmony.  Their self-repairing ships are a mix of technology and biology and they are able to use their understanding of the various galactic biomes as well as unique terraforming facilities to achieve unprecedented levels of habitability.

The Dhayut are master deceivers and paranoid schemers.  Their fast ships bring mistrust and slavery wherever they are found as their ability to infiltrate other societies allows them to manipulate other empires in ways that others cannot hope to achieve.

Each of these new factions also comes with their own special storyline and unique story locations, adding to the possible exploration events and to your knowledge of galactic lore.

Ikkuro Unique Features

• Harmonious Utopia Government focuses on happiness and increases immigration, recreation and medical capabiltiies
• Bonuses to Damage Control, Plague Curing and Troop Recovery
• Consensus Diplomacy means they are slower to agree to treaties, but value long-term relationships more
• No access to Bombardment weapons
• Biome Shaping facilities replace the default Terraforming Facilities
• SF27 Organic Hull (best self-repair of all ships), Fusion Beams (increased rate of fire beam weapons), Splinter Pods (longer range assault pods)
• Larger Colony Ships
• Special exclusive Leader and Ambassador traits focused on happiness, diplomacy and growth
• Special conditional events Respect for Life, Secrets of Life, Protection of Life and Disharmony reward non-aggression and colonization, but punish war, bombardment and extermination
• Larger than usual Colony Ships and improved suitability across most planet types

Dhayut Unique Features

• Surveillance Oligarchy Government focuses on sensors and adds a unique Internal Stabilization intelligence mission which reduces war weariness and corruption
• Bonuses to Hyperdrive Research, War Weariness and Ground Attack Strength
• Special Enslavement Control Facility improves the Slavery Population Policy
• Special Terminal Operations Center Facility improves success changes on difficult Intelligence misisons
• Access to two special Intelligence Missions: Influence Empire and Capture Base:[olist]
• Influence Empire allows them to shift the relationship of two other empires relative to each other
• Capture Base allows them to take control of another empire’s space station[/olist]
• VelocityDrive Hyperdrive (fastest hyperdrive in the galaxy)
• Larger Monitoring Stations
• Special exclusive Leader and Spy traits focused on counter-espionage, slavery and assassination
• Special conditional events Disinformation and Network Effects mean succeeding at Deep Cover missions makes the target like the Dhayut more and succeeding at any of the more difficult Intelligence Missions gives them a bonus to other missions against that same faction for the next year
• Their paranoia leads to periodic purges of disloyal members of Dhayut society

Any chance you could post those charts of the new ship models? They looked very nice!

Hm - why isn't there no announcment / shop-site on GOG yet ???

Great news, and just in a few days. Looking forward to it.

Watched some videos about the DLC on Youtube, from DasTactic for example. The new "Special features" for Dhayut and Ikkuro that creates more differentiation between species, was mentioned to come to the others too. I guess that will be at a later date or?

Buio wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 8:52 am Watched some videos about the DLC on Youtube, from DasTactic for example. The new "Special features" for Dhayut and Ikkuro that creates more differentiation between species, was mentioned to come to the others too. I guess that will be at a later date or?

Yes! They mentioned in their stream they intend to extend this feature to all other races later on. They said they would start with the new two races, and if it is well received (which I think it will be), then they'll go one by one to all the original races and give them the same treatment to differentiate them further.

frankycl wrote: Fri Mar 10, 2023 9:56 pm Hm - why isn't there no announcment / shop-site on GOG yet ???

Yes, we're two days from release and is there no page set up for this DLC on the Matrix/Slitherine, Steam or GOG sites? Not even a list price or an option to pre-order? That isn't going to help sales and the lack of official Q&A regarding the DLC may engender resentment among some of the the already disgruntled folks (primarily on Steam & GOG) who are still complaining about the DW2's buggy release last spring.

I thought some of the pre-release 'Let's Play' streams & previews by DasTactic and others were quite insightful but I doubt they were enough to stimulate wider interest and quell concerns.

spinocus wrote: Tue Mar 14, 2023 1:58 pm
Yes, we're two days from release and is there no page set up for this DLC on the Matrix/Slitherine, Steam or GOG sites? Not even a list price or an option to pre-order? That isn't going to help sales and the lack of official Q&A regarding the DLC may engender resentment among some of the the already disgruntled folks (primarily on Steam & GOG) who are still complaining about the DW2's buggy release last spring.

I thought some of the pre-release 'Let's Play' streams & previews by DasTactic and others were quite insightful but I doubt they were enough to stimulate wider interest and quell concerns.

I agree with you. But I assume that they are busy with fixing Aurora bugs and also fixing/tweaking some bugs with two new DLC races, so they do not have time to enable pre-orders etc.

There is also possibility that list of bugs is too big now, so they will post-pone this DLC.

All is just mine speculation but based on Technical Support forum and number of beta versions released every few days.

Nalim27 wrote: Wed Mar 15, 2023 9:13 am There is also possibility that list of bugs is too big now, so they will post-pone this DLC.

All is just mine speculation but based on Technical Support forum and number of beta versions released every few days.

As you note, a postponement is highly speculative - I wouldn't assume it unless they announce it.

I think they are very reticent to hype up a new release, given how rough 1.0 was. Instead, I think they are relying on word of mouth from their fan base. At least based on daily active players, which increased 3-5x in the last few months, that seems to be working. Whether its the exact right marketing strategy could be debated endlessly, but it doesn't look like a specifically bad idea.

Of course I hope the DLC is popular! These dev efforts deserve it IMO.

They've always been like this, since the original game, it's just their way.

Does purchase on the Matrix store include a Steam key?