Stardock owns Star Control and is planning an "XCOM-like" reboot

Aaaaaaaalleluia!

Excitement!!!..in two years.

The xcom reboot was great, but it was also Firaxis. I expect this to be about as much like Star Control 2 as Fallen Enchantress was like Master of Magic.

Having a hard time thinking of a better home for making an attempt at another Star Control game. Potentially good news for me.

I suspect Brian has been constraint by hospital men when he heard this news. He must be so happy there are no words to describe what exactly goes into his head…

So bizarre… I could have sworn that Toys For Bob bought back the rights to Star Control years ago. The article says that Stardock poached the rights from Atari. I don’t get it.

Toys For Bob is doing so well making Skylanders, I was really hoping they’d be able to take their warchest and create another Star Control. They have always wanted to do it, and have shopped the idea to publishers multiple times.

I’m very leery of Stardock’s sterile design approach being able to handle something like Star Control. The writing made the game, and as we’ve seen with publishers taking classic games and trying to just toss their own humor into a new game in the franchise (Leisure Suit Larry, LucasArts’ Monkey Island, Star Control 3, etc) it never works. The only company to come close is TellTale.

It’s in my top 5 of all time, but I have zero interest unless the Toys for Bob guys are involved. Without them it’ll be like reading Star Trek fan fiction, only with slightly less Spock cunnilingus. Hopefully something will work out.

Also, to be clear, Toys for Bob own the rights to everything involving those games other than the name, Star Control. So there won’t be Urquon, Spathi, etc. unless they’re involved, so something must be in the works.

I choose to be optimistic. They can always hire good writers to get that goofy sci-fi vibe. Might be good, why not?

I agree, I find Stardock games to be solid strategy designs with little soul in them. Dry is the right word indeed, and Star Control 2 is all but dry (plus, it’s at its core an action game, something they have never made before)…

I think a lot hinges on this:

“We’re very excited to publish a new Star Control game. We are inclined to go with an XCom-like reboot using Star Control 2 as a major source of inspiration,” Stardock CEO Brad Wardell told Joystiq. “By rebooting the series á la XCom, we can bring a new generation of gamers into a fun, silly space adventure. We hope to involve as many of the original designers and developers of the series, along with the fan base. It’s important to us that Star Control remain true to its origins as much as is possible.

Because the only thing purchased was the Star Control name - the rest of the IP belongs to Toys for Bob. So anyone could have created this sort of game previously under a different name.

But I am optimistic that something is at least happening with the franchise, and I think Brad can sort it all out.

I choose to be semi-optimistic too. Thanks to Grand Theft Auto, Assassin’s Creed, etc., open world games are actually really popular again, so a well made Star Control game could also be a nice commercial success too. It still amazes me that Star Control 2 was made by more or less 2 people, with help on the music by fans.

It does, but that’s a declaration of intent and a PR line, and I don’t know how much value to put in it. But I can’t shake the feeling that it’s a project by a developer with some past quality control problems in a genre that is both more expensive and has a harder to measure design process than what they are used to. I hope this is successful, I really do, but before I get my expectations up and then let them be squished, I want so see some footage…

I’ll go back to playing the Genesis version of Starflight (my favorite Star Control-like)…

As implied above, I have to assume that when Stardock says they will involve the original developers that they mean Paul Reiche and Fred Ford. Those two have certainly said they would like to produce a new game if they got the opportunity.

I think Stardock is a fine developer for a new version of Star Control. I just don’t know what this means in the context of the purchase being only for the rights to the name and not the actual content in the game.

My feelings exactly. I’m hopeful, but cautious.

Even without the content rights, my guess is the name itself is worth at least what they paid for it in Kickstarter nostalgia donations. I predict Stardock will round up some writing talent (original with any luck), get some preliminary planning together, then launch a Kickstarter to support development and as a platform for engaging the community.

Why would Stardock need a Kickstarter campaign? They’re a publisher.