STELLARIS

THE CHALLENGE

Stellaris, is an epic space exploration game full of diplomacy and war – but Maverick were presented with a problem; the game had the perception of being a niche experience that looks very difficult to learn for newcomers (and even a bit intimidating to seasoned strategy gamers.)

No problem right..?

Our aim was to challenge that perception by showing how fun/rewarding Stellaris actually is, and to target this appeal to both new audiences and lapsed players.

Our creative strategy involved focussing on the base game, rather than the DLCs and expansions – creating a multi-cam series of episodes and influencer-specific assets. Our social team researched and selected relevant influencers based on three elements:

1. Their personal audiences
2. The types of games they play on their channels
3. (Most importantly), they had to be new to Stellaris

In this way, the audience could follow alongside these noob players and learn the ropes with them in a piece of content that was part reality TV and part space exploration-drama.

We enlisted Stellaris expert Matt Hoving (A_Spec) to bring credibility to the series with the game’s core community, knowledge for the new players, and fun in-jokes even for the lapsed players. (Be honest, who actually spotted the Blorg?)

Through this approach we were able to integrate slower gameplay moments with a range of different entertaining storylines and with simple creative episode structures that focused on specific goals. The result was that all of our targeted audiences were able to find something to recognise and relate to.

This campaign showed off the features of the game in a fun and lighthearted context, making the game easier to understand and wholly digestible for all.