Here’s some food for thought. I could be misguided but hear me out — I’m not used to using my voice.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-10-09-life-after-agents-of-mayhem-where-now-for-volitionAccording to the above article, Studio Development Director Jim Boone has returned to DS Volition after an 18-month sojourn with Riot Games. He knows how much the FreeSpace series is beloved — having witnessed the birth of the franchise in 1998, he also gave that interview back in 2011 knowing how much the series was cherished by some Volition employees (
http://www.pcgamer.com/volition-would-commit-murder-to-make-freespace-3). Volition recently launched Agents of Mayhem to a lukewarm reception, and it’s certainly arguable the studio hasn't been staying true to their roots of innovative gameplay, narrative driven content, and sense of community. The terraforming mechanic in the original Red Faction, the six-degrees-of-freedom in Descent, and the creation of FRED as well as release of the SCP are cases in which I believe Volition pushed the gaming medium forward.
I ask earnestly if now is the time to ask again for FreeSpace 3, 18 years since the release of FreeSpace 2. Could we as a community amass proof that it would be a financially feasible project, pointing out the space sim genre’s slow reawakening since the introduction of Star Citizen and No Man's Sky? Escapist Magazine reported in 2013 that Interplay reacquired the rights from THQ for less than $8k (
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124715-Interplay-Buys-Freespace-Rights-For-a-Cool-7-500). Could Volition or the community crowdfund to buy those rights from Interplay, and give Volition control of the franchise? Interplay is a company that now uses their Twitter and Facebook feeds to promote sales of very old games, and their website has news no newer than 2015, which I find disappointing. Maybe FreeSpace Tactics was a way of testing the waters for a FreeSpace revival. The Kickstarter campaign was
initiated by Interplay employees. When even the old publisher’s employees have enjoyed a game so much they try to revive it in a different way…you know this game is beloved.
Even the goddamn Half Life series (the first game of which came out the same year as FreeSpace) got some sort of an ending recently, even if it was in the form of a blog post. The fans felt relief and closure. Volition is not like Valve, however. It's a smaller, more intimate team that has lost their IPs event after unfortunate event. One month after the release of Agents of Mayhem, Volition laid off 15% of its staff(!), Kotaku reported in September (
https://kotaku.com/big-layoffs-hit-agents-of-mayhem-developer-volition-1818844285. Even if Volition reacquired the rights to the FS franchise, Deep Silver would have to be convinced that FreeSpace 3 is a worthwhile product, and I would hope that the continued presence of HLP could help to show them that. The underperformance of Agents of Mayhem could be the key act to follow here.
With respect to playability: Some speculate that the space sim genre originally died out in part due to the decline of the joystick. While some of us “keyboard jockeys” existed back then and still do now, I would argue that the game could be played with an Xbox controller. I attempted playing FreeSpace 2 on a Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas X recently, and while it wasn’t for me, those with way more motor control than me could adapt easily to a new handheld layout, dust off their flight sticks, or buy new ones. Or join the keyboarders and mousers, tee hee.
Indeed, we HLPers have been here for longer than I think some of us expected to ever be (I’m looking at you: Sandwich, Axem, General Battuta, Darius, Goober5000, and others!!). Firesteel’s latest analyses on YouTube, Dan Wentz’s refreshing of the music, and last but not least, this community’s continued releases of mods and maintenance of the SCP, all show that players and professionals alike are still willing to support Volition in this endeavour. When you have a huge YouTube channel like WatchMojo.com release a video on the “Top 10 Space Combat Video Games” as recently as 2015 and sitting in the #1 spot is FreeSpace 2, you know this game has made some sort of mark on gaming history.
I don’t know the whole picture. I don’t understand how the transfer of IPs works, I don’t know what Volition’s situation is, I don’t know if Deep Silver has to care, or how many of us FreeSpace pilots would be left to buy FreeSpace 3 if it ever existed. HLP, let’s discuss: What do we have to do to finally make this happen or abandon all hope for FS3, maybe forever?