Star Control is now in the hands of Brad Wardell’s Stardock and although the studio has some chops in the 4X department with Galactic Civilizations, it’s a tall ask to replicate the magic of the original games — especially SC II. Where before we had little to no information on the modern retelling, we now have some, thanks to an FAQ on Wardell’s blog.
It’s not an extensive affair, but it does provide insight into how Stardock is approaching the game and the sort of content we can expect. Those looking forward to seeing all the aliens from the classics will be disappointed — the reboot will have “a new story and new aliens”.
Wardell says the approach will preserve the “Ur-Quan continuity” in case the original developers decide to revisit it separately.
Further on it’s explained how the game itself will be structured. After reading it, I’m not too sure how I feel:
Q: How does Stardock plan to handle the new aliens?
A: The new Star Control universe will be broken up into “star clusters”. The base game will include the “Home” star cluster which includes the Earthlings along with a dozen or more new aliens presenting their own challenges to the player.
Think of the 500 planet or so galaxy of Star Control 2 as being a star cluster in the new Star Control. In addition to providing a star cluster of this scope, we will also be including the tools for players to design their own ships (see GalCiv III), their own aliens, their own stories, star systems, star clusters, etc.
Players can then literally make their own star clusters and upload them to add them to the Star Control universe. What aliens, stories, ships, and star systems people make will be up to them.
Even though there was multiplayer in Star Control II I always saw it as a single-player experience first and foremost; the idea of user-created content is usually a nice addition to any game, but I’ll be curious to see if players embrace it here.
As for a release date, there’s nothing solid, though Wardell notes that the 25th anniversary of the second game is 2017. So there’s that.
Star Control FAQ [Little Tiny Frogs]
Image: Star-control
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