Introducing Ascendancy Redux

 

It’s been a while since I last released a new mod, so I’m very happy to finally announce Ascendancy Redux! AR is a simple yet fairly extensive species modpack introducing all playable species from the classic PC game Ascendancy (1995).

Ascendancy is a 4X space strategy title released in 1995 - just a year before the much more famous Master of Orion II. While definitely flawed, the game introduced several innovations that later became genre staples, such as fully 3D galaxy and solar-system views. What truly set it apart, however, was its mysterious atmosphere, created through ambient synth music and a selection of bizarre alien races. There were no humanoids in Ascendancy: instead, you could play as sandwich-like membranoids (Kambuchka), unicellular organisms (Mebes), or the self-explanatory Oculons. Today, the game is essentially abandonware.

 

Ascendancy’s alien species were once implemented in Stellaris through the Ascendancy Races mod, which is now unfortunately outdated. I took this as an opportunity to create my own take - something simple, maintainable, and faithful. There are no custom mechanics; instead, you can play a vanilla or heavily-modded Stellaris run set directly in the Ascendancy universe.

The contents of Ascendency Redux are:

• All 21 species portraits, upscaled to better fit modern resolutions.

• 21 greetings sound effects, using original audio. The samples have been trimmed to 5–10 seconds so they’re atmospheric but not disruptive.

• 21 flags (reused from Zaaset’s Ascendancy Races mod).

• 21 prescripted empires with forced spawn ON, designed to reflect the spirit of the original races.

 

Assigning Stellaris species types to the Ascendancy aliens was tricky - several of them are simply too alien to fit neatly. Some categories aligned naturally, others required a bit of interpretation:

• Mammalians: This group includes the hamster-like Baliflids, the mammoth-like Snovemdomas and even the "nature-goddesses" Govorom.

• Reptilians: Chamachie were an obvious pick.

• Arthropoids: Dubtaks (based on their insect legs), Marmosians and Ungooma are included here.

• Fungoids: Broad category including the fibrous Capelons, sandwich-like Kambuchka, Frutmaka and Swaparamans. Toroid-like Hanshaks are included here as well - I have no idea where to place these, honestly, but their art and description gives fungoid vibes.

• Plantoids: These include the obvious Arbryl and the not-so-obvious Oculons - based on their looks, mostly.

• Molluscoids: The jellyfish-like Chronomyst are placed here.

• Aquatics: The Fludentri are a literal Aquatic species. The Mebes and Nimbuloids not so much - the first one are unicellar organisms and the other ones are gaseous lifeforms. Still, there's no better category to place these.

• Lithoids: The Orfa are quite obvious, along with the Shevar, who are described as inorganic life forms.

• Machine: The Minions.

 

Designing the 21 empires involved a lot of guesswork - for example, are the Kambuchkan Sense-Masters tyrants or elected leaders? I tried to capture the vibe of each species. If something feels off, feel free to suggest improvements. 

To bring the setting closer to the original game, each empire uses its authentic starting message from Ascendancy, and each has a hand-picked homeworld named after a planet from the original game. Since Ascendancy generated homeworld systems randomly, I had to assign the names manually - so the Kambuchka begin on Schlupp, the Arbryl on Mukwonago, and the Balaflids, of course, on Chippendale.

Some interesting aggregate stats:

• 9 spiritualist vs. 5 materialist empires

• 9 pacifist vs. 6 militarist empires

• 3 xenophile vs. 7 xenophobe empires

• 7 egalitarian vs. 5 authoritarian empires

• 2 gestalts - one non-genocidal Hive (Ungooma Swarm) and one very genocidal Machine Intelligence (Minion Host)

• Several interesting and thematic civic combos, such as Idyllic Bloom / Inwards Perfection for the Arbryl Growth, Eager Explorers / Technocracy for the Chamachie (whose lore includes a prophesied doom) or Astrometeorology / Storm Callers for the Kambuchka.

Some prescripted empires require DLC - I chose not to restrict myself to purely vanilla civics, as that would have made things much less interesting. If an empire doesn’t load for you, you can always recreate it using the Create Species menu.

I hope you’ll enjoy this little mod, and have fun revisiting one of the weirdest and most atmospheric sci-fi strategy universes ever created!