Still a market for Wing Commander/Freespace like games?

Hello all,

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine earlier who is into space games, I asked him what he thought about space arcade flight sims like Wing Commander, Freespace.
He did play them when he was younger but was not so much into them because it was in some games impossible to skip difficult missions.

I asked him if he thought there was still a market for such games, he thinks there no longer is.
I myself am still a fan of such games and would love to see new titles being developed, any other fans here?

If the right one came my way..... I would be lost unto it....

if one crossed the arcade yummyness and plot of wing-commander, and the sheer awesomeness of elite in one game...

i would just lock myself in a room ... untill i had completed it!

The Freespace2 mod market is huge. You have The Babylon Project, The Minbari Project, Wing Commander Saga, Beyond The Red Line and many many more out there free to download.

Got them :D

If there was no market for space games, why is EVE still as popular as ever, with another expansion pack called Empyream Age due this month?

And another MMO space game, called Jumpgate Evolution is due out soon.

Plus some more MMO space games in development include:

Universe Online
Black Prophecy
Armada Online
Venture the Void

And the following space trading/combat games are due out soon:

Dark Horizon
The Tomorrow War
Star Trek Online

(I will add some more once I find a list of them I made recently)

Plus there have also been quite a few space combat and space trading style games released on the PC in recent years.

Darkstar One
Star Assault
Space Wolves 1 and 2 (I still need to complete the second one)
Spaceforce: Rogue Universe
X3
etc...

I do however think that space based RTS games are definitely more popular overall. The big difference is that although a space trading game is much more immersive it is always very time consuming, whereas an RTS you can dip in and out of much easier.

I played through Darkstar One earlier this year. Not fantastic, but decent entertainment. Reminded me a lot of Freelancer, but it wasn't as good. You can get it for $10 on Steam, which it is definitely worth. I'm sure there are plenty of better space games, but if you've allready played them all then this is worth a look in my opinion.

Well I am talking more about militaristic space fighter sims like Wing Commander and Freespace, not the open trade games like Elite, X, and Freelancer.

The upcoming Dark Horizon and The Tomorrow War are definitely of this type.

But I think the one you will find most interesting, which was released in March, is called Galactic Command - Echo Squad.

Or one from a couple of years ago that you might have missed was Space Interceptor: Project Freedom

Did anyone play the Colony Wars series on the Playstation? It was a great game by psygnosis in the vein of wing commander - I remember it had fantastic graphics for the time and played really well.

Yes, I was a big can of Colony Wars. Another great series from Pygnosis! Also G-Police was pretty good too.

I would like to see a space sim on a next gen console, but the management part of the game has to be well designed, otherwise you'll lose orientation. I wish that you could also fly space ships in Mass Effect, that would be so great, as its setting is brilliant.

I really need to play Mass Effect. I've had the PC version for over a week now, but not had time to install and play it yet. I keep read so much about it and hearing good things from people.

I've also heard that if you play as a female role, your character is voiced by Jennifer Hale, famous for her voice acting as Bastila in the original KOTOR.

Only thing is that the beginning is really slow, you'll need at least 2-3 hours of gameplay until you reach the Citadel and can explore the universe as you wish. The cutscenes can also deter some people, as they are a big part of the game, for me that isn't a problem, as the story is also great.

That is OK. Their previous Knights of the Old Republic games were exactly the same and I really enjoyed both of those. In fact they are still a couple of my favourite games of all time.

Man, a next-gen Colony Wars would ROCK. As would a next-gen Wing Commander. Don't just stick in massive space battles, though. The biggest reason I found Wing Commander so compelling was the atmosphere, the (branching) storyline and the characters. Even the baddies were cool.

Hello Sharigan,

Well as Chris Roberts once said, Wing Commander was a bit like WW2 in space, yes there were some big space battles but most of the time it was single ships or small fleets on picket duty.

The Confederation couldn't deploy massive fleets after another, they also had a lot of territory to defend, not just the Kilrathi/Nephilim, but also pirates and anyone who wanted a piece of it. (Retros/Church of Man, a certain rogue Steltek drone).
They had to defend a war economy that was already costing billions.

The atmosphere was do well as it focused on the flight personnel/handful of command personnel of just one of many ships doing their part of the war.

They should develop a Freespace 3. Now that would be very nice.

Would a new Wing Commander game sell? I seem to remember the last couple didn't do so well.