No, Rebellion is a stand-alone game that’s basically the culmination of all the work they did on the original 2008, through to Trinity (which was a bundle of the base game + original expansions anyway).
If you’re new to Sins you only need to buy Rebellion, and then any DLCs released for it that take your fancy.
None of the DLCs released prior to Minor Factions have ever felt that ground-breaking to me - one adds new planet types, one makes the NPC pirates a bit more aggressive etc… it’s all skippable and probably worth waiting for a sale.
The Mod community has done a far better job of making this game interesting, much like how Rome: Total War’s mod community kept that game a live for so long. The Sins of the Prophet Halo mod, for example, is really cool.
That said (and I need to confirm by putting some playtime in), Minor Factions looks like it could actually add an interesting new dynamic into the game with the minor factions, but we’ll have to see. At worst, they are the existing pirate NPCs with a flag and a planet of their own now, at best they could be something like the city-states from the Civilization series.
As far as I know, it sold very well, one of the best selling titles for Stardock and evidence of that it’s in the multiple DLC and expansions released.
But, if you have a successful IP, the normal thing would be to make a second game, a sequel called Sins 2, after a few years. However after 10 years since the initial release, no sequel has been released, or even announced. Hell, they still make dlc 10 years later. You would think they should spent that dev time in a sequel at this point.
So, I wonder if behind scenes in some kind of IP quagmire.
Right after the release of Sins Rebellion, Rebellion (as in, the 2000 A.D. peeps) decided to sue Ironclad for the naming of Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. They felt they owned the trademark to the word ‘Rebellion’ and that Ironclad were deliberately infringing on it. It was a well documented occurrence but I never heard anything about what the outcome was : https://www.engadget.com/2012/08/16/rebellion-sues-stardock-for-its-use-of-the-word-rebellion/
After that, they tried to make a Dark Fantasy RTS called Sins of the Dark Age, but the MOBA craze was really kicking into gear around then so they tried to turn it into a MOBA and it kinda died on its feet. I never got a chance to play it, but it released in 2015 and lasted about two months.
My suspicion is that this all took its toll on them as a studio. God knows what Stardock is doing with them day-to-day, but they’re still able to put out DLC for Sins so that’s something.
As an aside, this is why I find it hard to support or get excited about anything Rebellion does. They engaged in base-less IP batting and potentially contributed to the downfall of a really promising indie studio. Not sure I can forgive them for that.
They’ve been hiring, and still have jobs going for environment artist, character artist, and 3d animator. A creative game writer position mentioned preference for fantasy writing samples: http://www.ironcladgames.com/job-posting
I have seen that, I guess I perhaps wasn’t reading it fully - I get that they defeated them in the US but the ending makes it sound like they still have to fight them elsewhere - like in Canada, UK etc… and AFAIK there’s been no follow up to that, has there?
But yeah I’d forgotten that the US part of this had been tidied up a few years ago, but I always had the impression it was still an on-going problem given the global nature of Trademarks etc…
Yeah I’m not sure that part has been publicised, but since the game is on sale in the UK using the name ‘Rebellion’ I guess either it failed, was dropped, or some arrangement was reached.
Possibly, although I think they could still be allowed to use the name even if a court-case is on going? (No idea to be honest, I’m just trying to remember what’s happened in similar cases).
I mean if you take the concept “innocent till proven guilty”, I’d imagine they wouldn’t have to change the name till they lost. So it could still be on-going for all we know. I hope not though - Ironclad don’t deserve it.
The other thing is that sins is 32-bit, and would definitely hit some of the limitations there. I think they always wanted a sins 2 to be fully 64-bit,requiring a new engine to get there.
On the Steam conversations, Island Dog said to take this DLC-from-out-of-nowhere as an indication resources being put toward the franchise have increased. They’ll announce when they’ll announce, but something’s coming ;)
Maybe not the right thread, but I think I saw Brad posted on Twitter that Stardock is also working on a big/free Fallen Enchantress update too. The good old stuff returns!
Being Star Trek mods, both have LOTS of similarities and each has received updates this past year. I’ve seen people argue Armada III is more economy-focused and balanced gameplay than Sacrifice of Angels 2, which some argue is more lore-focused and “true to the shows” in terms of how the ships stack up. Honestly, they’re both great with nuances to differentiate between, but both are certainly worth trying out.
I tried to get into this, but the interface is too hard to work through. At default resolution it’s super tiny, when I set interface to 150% or 200% it’s so pixelated I can’t make things out. Feel like I’m going cross-eyed.
sarcasm warning: they’re called “glasses,” Jeff /sarcasm
More seriously, it’s a shame - the empire tree management system (the chart on the left side of the screen) is by far and away my favorite tool in an RTS. But yeah, if you can’t see it then it doesn’t do much good.
