Drexy and Daz Tactic sit down with Elliot Gibbs of Code Force, designer and programmer of Distant Worlds, to discuss the origins of the series, the rocky launch of Distant Worlds 2, and the Shadows Rising expansion, with its lone pirate start, cockpit mode, shadow ports and smuggling.
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This interview features Elliot Gibbs, the designer and programmer behind the Distant Worlds series, speaking with Drexy and fellow Distant Worlds streamer Dastactic. Elliot explains how a spare-time project grew into a real-time, fully simulated 4X, why the series avoids abstracting resources, and how the automation and advisor systems came about. The conversation covers the long road to Distant Worlds 2, including its difficult launch, before turning to the Shadows Rising expansion and the systems behind it: lone pirate play, cockpit mode, shadow ports, resource trading, smuggling and contracts. It closes with plans for further faction DLC, including the Securans and Nexilians.
Critical Moves Podcast: Episode 102 Show Notes
Episode Title: Distant Worlds 2: Shadows Rising with Elliot Gibbs
Hosts: Drexy, Dastactic
Guest: Elliot Gibbs, designer and programmer of Distant Worlds, Code Force
Episode Length: ~65 minutes
Episode Summary
Drexy hosts this interview with Elliot Gibbs, the designer and programmer of Distant Worlds, joined by Daz Tactic, a long-time player and streamer of the series. Elliot traces the game from a side project written alongside a software career to the Matrix Games releases, Distant Worlds Universe on Steam and the eight-year gap before Distant Worlds 2. The discussion covers the series’ commitment to simulating resources and logistics rather than abstracting them, the real-time design choice, the move to 3D and the rough launch of the sequel. Most of the second half is spent on Shadows Rising, the pirate-focused expansion, including its new ways to play, its trade and smuggling systems and its performance challenges, before Elliot outlines the factions he plans to tackle next.
Why Distant Worlds? How a Side Project Became a Game
Elliot says he enjoyed the genre and was writing software for a living, nothing to do with games, when he began tinkering in his spare time to see how far he could take a space 4X. The project eventually became a game, at which point he got in touch with Matrix Games and worked with them to bring it to release. Daz and Drexy both recall being struck by how seriously the game treated resources and logistics.
Simulating Resources Instead of Abstracting Them
Elliot explains that he was drawn to representing as much of the game as possible to a low level of detail, and admits it may have been a mistake in terms of workload. The payoff, he says, is that interesting systems emerge when resources, troops, movement and logistics are all in play, and the AI then has to be built around that. Daz notes that planning an invasion at distance was one of his favourite parts of the series, while Elliot concedes the game’s learning curve is steep for newcomers who wonder why something is not being built when they have the steel but not in the right place.
Real Time Rather Than Turn-Based
Asked why the series is real time when almost every other 4X was turn-based, Elliot says he liked the idea of a seamless experience and found turns fairly artificial. It brought serious challenges, particularly around performance and getting unit-level and empire-level logic to run together, but he still prefers it. He and Daz describe the game as a simulation with gameplay layered on top, finding the fun parts to accentuate.
The Private Sector and Offloading the Dull Bits
Elliot describes the private sector as a way to remove tasks that are probably not fun, such as manually moving steel from one place to another, so that players can focus on the parts they want to control. He calls this a driving philosophy across the game: pick out the fun parts, develop them, and offload the rest, while keeping growth in a 4X from becoming a chore.
Automation and Advisors
Elliot explains that early development had only fully automated or fully manual systems, and that Matrix suggested a semi-automated middle ground. The result was advisors that run the automated logic but turn its actions into suggestions the player approves or rejects. Drexy recalls learning the game from a guide that began by switching all automation off, and Daz notes that manual-play specialists such as Larry Monty keep the community aware of how differently the game can be played. Drexy says he now uses a lot of automation in Distant Worlds 2.
From Slow Burn to Distant Worlds Universe on Steam
Elliot agrees that the first game was a slow burn. It sold at first through the Matrix store to a core following, and only grew substantially once Distant Worlds Universe arrived on Steam, by which point many issues had been worked through. Daz adds that it was very much a word-of-mouth cult classic, and Elliot recalls that discounts were offered to existing owners of the base game and expansions.
The Move to 3D and the Orbit Debate
Elliot says Distant Worlds 2 was designed to be more cinematic, with bigger planets, smaller ships and much larger solar systems and distances. That scale is why orbits were dropped: at those distances a planet would barely appear to move in a typical game, so he decided the effort was better spent elsewhere. He admits the reaction was stronger than he expected, noting that some players used planetary movement tactically in the early game.
Eight Years Between Games and a Rocky Launch
Universe was released in 2014 and Distant Worlds 2 in 2022. Elliot says much of the gap went on tidying a fragmented code base and unifying systems that had grown over time. He accepts that the launch was rough, citing rendering stability on different video cards and drivers, memory management issues and features players wanted that the team had not anticipated. Daz praises the beta process as the best he has been part of, suggesting the problems came from hardware the testers did not have. Elliot credits the modder Tyler with helping with fixes and adds that the heavily multi-threaded design makes getting locking and memory management right a significant effort.
Performance Work and Shadows Rising
Elliot says performance optimisation has always been an ongoing task because of the scale of the simulation. For Shadows Rising he kept a close eye on systems that could cause trouble, particularly contracts and the logic that searches for a good buy location and sell location in freelance resource trading.
More Than Just Pirates
Drexy and Daz argue that pirates does not do the expansion justice, and Elliot agrees, describing the aim as using existing game systems to give the galaxy more depth and character. He compares the idea loosely to the Caribbean in the age of piracy and says the expansion adds ways to play regardless of what kind of empire you run, including richer independent colonies.
Lone Pirate and Cockpit Mode
Pirates have fewer ships and no private sector, so every freighter, mining ship and warship is under the player’s control and has to matter more. Elliot says this led naturally to the lone pirate start, where you play a single ship, and to cockpit mode, where you fly in first person with keyboard or gamepad controls. The team debated whether to include lone pirate at all, given how long the expansion was already taking, and he is glad they did. Drexy compares the experience to Elite on the BBC Micro. Daz asks for a free look around the cockpit or a way to keep the target in view, and Elliot says there is likely more that can be done with the interface, with Drexy joking that VR will be next on the list.
Shadow Ports, Ship Upgrades and the Pirate Economy
Shadow ports are where lone pirates buy resources, take on contracts and upgrade ships, since they have no spaceport or research of their own. The upgrade screen is essentially the ship design screen with extra options and a bill to pay, and Elliot explains that supporting this meant extending the ship design logic to cope with a faction that does not track its own research levels. Players can also buy a completely new hull. Drexy admits struggling to earn money as a pirate, and Elliot says balancing income was difficult because players like to make money in different ways, with contracts, raiding, resource trading and privateering all available, and that he may make some settings adjustable in future.
Resource Trading and Separate Buy and Sell Prices
Elliot explains that proper trading and smuggling needed separate buy and sell prices at each location, something the game had not had before, along with buy limits so a location stops purchasing once it holds too much of a resource. Pricing now varies by independent colony, shadow port and faction, and the price differential is what drives freelance trading.
Smuggling and the Black Market
Elliot says he found smuggling contrived until Eric from Matrix Games suggested that pirate influence at a location could siphon resources into a contraband stockpile that appears on the black market. Smuggled goods load into a separate cargo bucket, and if another ship scans you and detects them you are flagged as a smuggler and most factions will chase you. Scanner jamming, stealth and role masking can help you avoid detection, and Elliot suggests hidden cargo bays as a possible future addition.
Automation, Fleets and Queued Orders
Elliot says most development time goes into tweaking the AI and handling the edge cases that appear as systems interact, such as fuel range, nebulae, fleets that cannot stay together, repair and retrofit. Drexy and Daz note that fleet management and bombardment behaviour have improved dramatically. They also ask about queued missions, which were absent at launch. Elliot explains that Distant Worlds 2 leaned on global lists that any ship could work from, but players still wanted queues for individual ships and fleets, so they were added, with the weakness that a queue disappears if its ship does.
What Comes Next: Securans, Nexilians and Beyond
Elliot says the next faction DLC will cover the Securans and Nexilians, with a lot of artwork already complete, and that the Ackdarians are still to come. The aim is to give each faction unique gameplay features rather than reworked bonuses, and he promises the Nexilians will be developed more sensibly this time, leaning into their game of Toad Dash. Beyond that he sees room to extend resources, diplomacy and internal empire politics, building on the internal contracts already in the base game, and says he is open to entirely new factions.
Ship Layouts and Firing Arcs
Going 3D forced the team to think about where weapons, engines and hangar bays sit on each ship, and about firing arcs, which Elliot says was Eric’s sensible advice from early on. It makes ship and base models more work and has probably made modding harder, but Elliot argues it adds a tactical dimension to planning, design and battle. Drexy points to ships whose main gun fires backwards as a good example.
Final Thoughts
Elliot says Shadows Rising is an opportunity to expand gameplay for whatever players are doing, with lone pirate, cockpit mode, standard pirate play and planetary empires all available. Drexy says he is honoured Elliot came on, noting that he had never heard him interviewed before, and Elliot explains he is based in New Zealand and that the timing worked because development had just finished.
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Episode Verdict
This is a well-informed conversation between two committed fans and the person who built the game, and it benefits from Elliot’s willingness to discuss weaknesses as readily as strengths, from the orbit controversy to the difficult Distant Worlds 2 launch. The smuggling and trading segments are the most useful for listeners, explaining systems that are easy to miss in play and showing how a design problem was solved with existing tech rather than new mechanics. The thread running through the whole episode, that the game should simulate in detail while keeping the fun parts manageable, gives it a clear philosophy rather than a list of features. Daz and Drexy’s enthusiasm occasionally outweighs their questions, but Elliot’s detail on faction plans and future directions gives fans plenty to look forward to.
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