Master of Orion
Skip · Strategy · 2016
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
SKIP IT.
The value isn't there at $24.99.
- Length
- 11.7h
- Value
- $2.14/hr
- Reviews
- 77% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 2 GB of memory, nVidia 240, ATI 4650, Intel Integrated HD 4000 or better, 15 GB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
The ascendant spacefaring 4X strategy game returns! A new chapter in the epic Master of Orion saga is poised to once again capture the imaginations of millions of gamers.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
The value story
The lowest price on record is $3.74, set in February 2022. It has been discounted 38 times in the 11 years tracked here, typically at 50 percent off, with about 7 weeks between sales.
Value puts it in the top 29 percent of the games it competes with. It is pricier than 95 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 69 percent. Among the games that feel like it, ENDLESS Space™ - Definitive Edition ($9.99, scores 60) beats it on value, while it beats Sid Meier's Civilization®: Beyond Earth™ ($39.99, scores 9).
Steam's global achievement data says about 2 percent of players ever finish it. On an 11.7-hour game, that is a lot of paid-for hours most people never see. 2 of the 800 Steam-purchase reviews sampled here come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written April 2020 to September 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 41 percent of the 285 reviews written there were positive, against 77 percent overall, and those are 4 percent of everything written about it.
The main story runs 11.7 hours. Doing everything runs 127, 11 times as long.
The drop-off
86% start to 2% finishMost players never reach the end. On an 11.7-hour game, that's a lot you pay for and may never use. Steam global achievements
Players
305 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
What players say
As someone who played a ton of Master of Orion 2, I honestly didn't expect to like this one as much as I do. It's definitely a bit slower than MoO2 and takes a different approach. You can't just rush everything with your fleet and expect to win. Diplomacy, spying, alliances and keeping other races under control actually matter a lot more here, which gives the game a different kind of depth. The graphics and...
Master of Orion is a really enjoyable space strategy game and one that I still wish had received more long-term development. The core gameplay is solid, the presentation is great, and the combination of exploration, colonization, diplomacy, research, fleet building, and warfare works very well. It captures that classic 4X feeling without becoming too difficult to get into. What is disappointing is that the game...
Trade treaties are so annoying. The game is just more annoying than I remember. It nags.
Player reviews from Steam: the most helpful all-time, plus the newest that clear the same quality bar, with the hours each player had put in when they wrote it. The mix of Recommended and Not recommended follows the game's Steam ratio. Rotates daily. Opinions are theirs.
Cite this score
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Master of Orion scores 41/100 on the BANG Score (a skip). The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/298050/master-of-orionThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 16, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.