Volition: 'We'd Kill To Make FreeSpace 3'

Tom Hopkins

Volition producer Jim Boone has told NowGamer that much of the development team would jump at the chance to make another game in the space-fighter sim franchise

Published on Feb 7, 2011

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There is a group of people that would commit murder to do that game

FreeSpace 2 hit the PC back in 1999, garnering wide praise and a wide fanbase, but reportedly moderate sales. But would Volition be interested in returning to the franchise? “You have no idea," Boone told NowGamer. "There is a group of people that would commit murder to do that game. The biggest problem that we have is… oh man, that game is so beloved. I did a bunch of missions for both games and it’s so dear to my heart I can’t even tell you. The problem we had was Freescape 2 didn’t sell as well…"

The space-sim genre started to disappear shortly after FreeSpace 2, which the producer attributes to one thing: the death of the joystick. "Here’s my theory, but I readily admit that I’m not the most objective person on this right?" explained Boone.

"My theory is this: The reason why we all think [the genre] died is because this was a time when Quake was out and it was very much about the mouse and keyboard. Before that, when we did Descent for example, it was perfectly common for people to have joysticks – we sold a lot of copies of Descent. It was around that time that the more modern FPS with mouse and keyboard came out, as opposed to just keyboard like Wolfenstein or something.

"So people just stopped getting joysticks. They were just gone. And then you still had console, but it was all digital - so my theory has been, ever since we’ve got analogue as a standard controller for consoles no one has done a heavy-duty, top, top quality space sim on console."

Is it a niche that Volition could cater for in the future? "I feel like there’s an opportunity there," added Boone, "but I’ve got no data to support that."

Whaddya reckon then FreeSpace fans? Is this good news? Get petitioning Volition now.

 

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