Stellaris lets you explore the galaxy — and conquer it — on May 9

Paradox Interactive’s first grand strategy foray into the final frontier launches soon for the PC, Mac, and Linux.

Stellaris should be available on May 9, developer and publisher Paradox Interactive said this evening during its Game Developers Conference press event in San Francisco. It takes the success of Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis and puts it into the stars, making it stand out from other space strategy games with its emphasis on diplomacy, exploration, and trading.

Paradox also announced that Hearts of Iron IV, its latest game in the World War II sim series, would come out June 6 (D-Day).

Stellaris may seem like a departure for Paradox, as the company has published other space games but hasn’t made a grand strategy scenario set in the stars before. It offers a great deal of randomization when it comes to the races you’ll encounter — so much so that the designers hope that players will never see the prescripted races from the start (unless they’re playing an alien, who could blunder upon humans sometime in their game).

Players also get to determine the ethics and morals of their civilizations, join alliances and federations, and even play their galactic explorations in multiplayer with up to 31 others.