The Star Control franchise? If you’re not up-to-date with the latest, the rights are currently in the hands of developer Stardock, best known for its Galactic Civilizations series. We know the company hasn’t been sitting idle with the property, but it’s only recently that CEO Brad Wardell has spoken about what plans it has for creating a new, modern instalment.
In an interview with ArsTechinca’s Lee Hutchinson, Wardell mentions that Stardock has been in contact with the original developers, Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III, however, they can’t be directly involved as there are certain ownership issues related to Toys for Bob (the company under which Star Control II was created) and Activision.
The good news is that Stardock won’t just be recycling Galactic Civilizations to make it more Star Control-like and waiting for the dollars to roll in — it wants to be faithful to the original design and spirit of Star Control II:
“In our minds, Star Control is more of an adventure game … In terms of design, I don’t think our 4X development really comes into play since we don’t see Star Control as 4X. But we are very familiar with space-based game development, and we’ve assembled a team of Star Control fanatics to ensure that we stay true to the series”.
What about the awesome Super Melee player-versus-player mode? Stardock says it’s most definitely in, but given how far technology — and multiplayer game design — has come since SC II, the developer feels it can expand on and enhance the template of the original:
“We intend to make Super Melee a pretty big part of the game from a multiplayer point of view,” Wardell confirmed. “It’ll be an expansion on what was in Star Control 2, except we would like to support more sophisticated battle arenas and up to 8 players. We picture there being a lot of different modes for Super Melee, ranging from classic to Dota-style super melee”.
DOTA-style gameplay fused with Star Control II? Just take my money.
Stardock CEO reveals details about new Star Control title in development [ArsTechnica]
Image: The Ur-Quan Masters
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One response to “Stardock’s Star Control Reboot Could Feature ‘DOTA-Style Super Melee’”
This will be awful. Just play the original, there is a great open source version available. There is no way they will capture what is great about it – at best we’ll get an XCOM style “pretty good game but not a true sequel/remake”.