Many of these expand on the original games with all new ships, weapons, even gameplay mechanics. Beyond the original games, there are dozens of custom made campaigns, some more than 20-missions long. So I was absolutely overjoyed to learn that the Freespace mod scene, which congregates on the website Hard Light, had developed and released Knossos: an honest-to-goodness, Steam-esque launcher app that presents you with a cornucopia of user-generated content, all just a click away. (I remember one session where, after beating a single particularly sadistic user-made level, I looked up and realized it was 6:30am.) Unfortunately, the process of installing and enabling everything was fiddly and kind of a pain. I played around with these mods in college and had a blast. This helped foster a fanatic modding scene that has been churning out custom ships, graphics improvements, and new campaigns for more than a decade. Unusually, the games were made open source by their developers, Volition (they of Red Faction and Saints Row fame). The real appeal of Freespace, and what has kept me coming back, is its community. I've replayed both the original and its sequel a half dozen times.īut the actual games are only a fraction of the story. Originally released in 1998, it blended frantic action with ship customization and a halfway decent storyline.
I will go out on a limb and say I think Freespace is the best space sim series ever created (fight me, Wing Commander).
