![]() In an effort to make space exploration fun and action-packed, modern space sims only manage to make it predictable and dull. More recent games like Everspace 2 try to achieve the same vibe, but they rarely manage to capture the same sense of awe, and sometimes dread, you get while exploring the Sirius Sector. Since there’s no free-roaming mode, playing on an empty server or creating your own is the only way to bypass the story and focus exclusively on the exploration, which is easily the best part of the game. Sure, you may need to bring some buddies along because very few people are still playing it these days, but you can have tons of fun in solo play. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to help players figure out some of the more complex mechanics, but I feel like tutorials are a bit excessive these days, and I wish every game would give you the option to skip them entirely.Īs far as the multiplayer is concerned, that’s where the game truly shines even without mods like Discovery. That may seem scary at first given the size of the Sirius Sector, but it’s a breath of fresh air after playing modern titles that constantly interrupt you to explain every little minutia of the gameplay. As is often the case with older titles, there’s essentially no hand-holding, so you’ll have to figure out how everything works in this world all on your own. This includes completing odd jobs for various factions, mining and hauling goods for profit, exploring asteroid fields and other dangerous areas in search of long-lost treasure and unique weapons, and more. ![]() The single-player experience is pretty straightforward but very satisfying once you are given the freedom to do pretty much everything you want in between story missions. In order to celebrate Freelancer's 20th birthday, I recently jumped back into the game and can confirm that it continues to be as enjoyable as ever. Related: Gamers Don't Win With Microsoft's Acti-Blizz Merger My freighter wouldn’t have stood a chance against the pirate’s ship, so I submitted, and the player went on their way, several tens of thousands of credits richer. A few minutes into my first mining session, I got accosted by someone roleplaying as a pirate, who threatened to blow up my ship if I didn’t hand over all my credits. Mining in most video games is snooze-worthy, but that wasn’t the case here. I wasn’t much for role-playing myself, but the fact that people were taking things so seriously intrigued me, so I went ahead and bought myself a small freighter along with a mining license and headed for the nearest asteroid field. Luckily, the officer let me go with just a warning and advised me to get a license before I ventured into the fringe systems again, lest I got shot on sight by pirates or other cops. ![]() I learned that the hard way when I was wandering around aimlessly trying to explore the new systems introduced by the mod only to be stopped by someone role-playing as a space cop who proceeded to scan my cargo bay and scolded me for flying without a license. You can think of it as Eve Online, but with forced roleplaying. While in vanilla Freelancer you can merely pretend to be a full-fledged pirate, a miner, or a cop, in Discovery you can actually be all those things and so much more.ĭiscovery features a number of systems that support immersive roleplaying, and you’re unlikely to get very far if you break the written or unwritten rules created by the community. I've played a myriad of online games over the years, but I have yet to encounter another community that takes roleplaying as seriously as the people who play Freelancer Discovery. By the end of it, I became a master explorer and was just about ready to put my freelancing days behind me when I made a huge discovery.įreelancer Discovery is a mod that enhances the game in every way imaginable, and it’s what got me into the multiplayer. In a time when game guides and wikis were pretty much non-existent, that little venture robbed months away from my life, but it was time well spent. The game features dozens of different star systems, and in my early 20s, I took it upon myself to fully explore all of them and uncover their mysteries. And let me tell you, there’s a lot to explore in the Sirius Sector! While I wasn’t particularly impressed by the story, the universe immediately hooked me in and compelled me to explore its every nook and cranny. Freelancer was the first space sim I ever played, and it left a strong impression on me from the get-go.
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