i wouldn’t even classify freelancer as a space sim. it’s a point’n’shoot sandbox arcade game with a market. the story is great, the worldbuilding is good, but you could swap out the space part for basically any other vehicle-heavy setting without changing the mechanics. it’s sid meiers pirates in space, basically. the flying model, being constrained as it is by the entire world being flat, always felt like a weird compromise.
personally i think games like Flight of Nova or Outer Wilds are far better space sims, but they don’t really have most other parts of freelancer, like combat or factions.
the closest one can get in the modern era is probably the X series which to me feels better that freelancer but still feels pretty simple. if i am in space i want to feel like i’m in space. i want more games to go the Rogue System or Objects in Space route.
Yea the flat thing I can agree with. Guessing they decided on that to streamline world building. Everything else I still disagree on, primarily because they are games, not Sims, so when I say space Sim game I mean the general direction of the game. If we want to get all technical, then the x games and elit don’t even come close to star citizen. And you will never hear me say star citizen is my favorite space Sim game.
that’s a take i’ve not seen before. i would never compare star citizen to any of those simply because it’s not a game. it’s a collection of systems intimately connected to one man’s hubris and a multimillion dollar grift.
i wouldn’t even classify freelancer as a space sim. it’s a point’n’shoot sandbox arcade game with a market. the story is great, the worldbuilding is good, but you could swap out the space part for basically any other vehicle-heavy setting without changing the mechanics. it’s sid meiers pirates in space, basically. the flying model, being constrained as it is by the entire world being flat, always felt like a weird compromise.
personally i think games like Flight of Nova or Outer Wilds are far better space sims, but they don’t really have most other parts of freelancer, like combat or factions.
the closest one can get in the modern era is probably the X series which to me feels better that freelancer but still feels pretty simple. if i am in space i want to feel like i’m in space. i want more games to go the Rogue System or Objects in Space route.
Yea the flat thing I can agree with. Guessing they decided on that to streamline world building. Everything else I still disagree on, primarily because they are games, not Sims, so when I say space Sim game I mean the general direction of the game. If we want to get all technical, then the x games and elit don’t even come close to star citizen. And you will never hear me say star citizen is my favorite space Sim game.
that’s a take i’ve not seen before. i would never compare star citizen to any of those simply because it’s not a game. it’s a collection of systems intimately connected to one man’s hubris and a multimillion dollar grift.