I don't think anyone, even 
, could make FS3 better than BP team already did. 
Besides, given the current trends in games, it'd most likely turn out as one of the following:
1. Epic, grand scale MMO game to end all games, with a long development, lots of hype and no real depth once it gets released after all this (a number of recent "grand projects").
2. Dumb, arcade-y shooter designed for gamepad and console play, with no story worth mentioning (most older space sims).
3. "Retro" game looking and playing like Wing Commander 1, with great literary ambitions and not much else, including budget and development effort (too many indie games to count).
4. Cinematic FPS focused on multiplayer, with the ability to fly a few spacecraft over a small map (typical AAA stuff).
5. Boring, grindy trading sim with only "player-created story" and lots of procedural stuff (the usual modern way of doing space sims until Star Citizen started the "grand project" thing).
6. A multiplayer-only space shooter with controls slightly simplified from FS2 and lost of ways to squeeze money out of you (another popular genre these days).
This is pretty depressingly accurate, modern day game industry would definitely turn FS3 into something...
significantly 'streamlined'.
I also agree with the things that Luis dias said. (Others have brought up good points too, just pretend I agree with those too!)
It's just the state of the industry. It takes millions of dollars to make a modern AAA game, so it needs to sell millions of copies to get a return of investment. A niche game that has at least 24 buttons just as basic gameplay functions but should be playable on a gamepad for the average joe, isn't really going to fly in sales predictions. Now Freespace has like a ****ton of redundant keys (you don't really need a targetting key to see who last ordered a hamburger) but even if you reduce it to just necessary keys it's a really tight fit on a gamepad. So inevitably somethings gotta give and options/features will end up cut, dumbing the game down.
And storywise, nobody is realistically going to give FS2 a proper official story successor. For volition, FS2 was clearly just another project they once worked on. Watching them trying to play their own game on stream was depressing, they couldn't figure out their own controls, and barely seemed to remember much of the game in general. They're not like a dedicated community fan base that has disected and thought about the game and its story for over 10 years. They'd need to come up with a story within roughly 2-3 years while developing a new game, which would likely more end up being a sort of reboot of the franchise because selling the idea of doing a sequel of a poorly sold game from 1999 to the sales department is... unlikely to succeed.
The shivantown story snippets seemed...
pretty weak, and honestly doesn't hold a candle to the storyline being told in BP: WiH. On that subject, while BP is incredibly strong, its not a natural progression of the FS2 formula, and makes for a 'poor FS3' in that regard. But has never been intended to be that anyway. So I'm just repeating what lead writer Battuta has been stressing for years (even a few posts up). But that's part of the beauty of the modding community, exactly because nothing is canon post FS2, we've got campaigns that tell so many stories and explore so many different possible freespace subjects. With different writing styles, story telling methods, talking protagonists and silent ones.
I dont think HLP is realistically going to obtain the Freespace IP. There is most likely no way that the whole bundle of IP's is going to be in anyone's price range here (not even if we all bundle all our powers). But if we somehow magically did, the only thing I would really like to see out of it is the liberation of the restrictions that are currently on the engine. Possibly allowing people to create commercial products on the freespace engine? We've got people creating complete games with it as it is, for absolutely jack bollocks. Then I look at the steam greenlight and see talentless hacks make more money than all of the actually highly skilled an talented creators here combined, have ever made creating Freespace content and it kind of ircks me at times.
also
Derek smart
DEREK SMART
DEREK SMART
