Freelancer (2003)

4.29 from 185 ratings

332 members have it in their collection · 5 playing now · 64 backlogged · 67 wish listed

How long? Main story 18h · 100% 82h (from 3 logged playthroughs)

Eight hundred years prior to the start of our story, bitter conflict divided all of mankind. A handful of colonists struck out on their own to begin anew - far away from the Earth and its turmoil. Several ships were launched with enough equipment and supplies to give the hundreds onboard a fighting chance - but since the area around far-off Sirius had never been surveyed, no one really knew what to expect. What they found was a new frontier of free-flowing natural resources, unexplored territories, great wonders and lurking dangers. Each ship, representing the clusters of people and their earthly place of origin, settled into different parts of the galaxy pre-selected by their ship-board computer to give them the best chance of survival. Life was hard in the beginning, but over the 800 years the different colonies prospered and expanded their territories, claiming more and more systems for their own. Survival and propagation eventually led to growth and profit as each of the colonies developed specialties and fostered commerce. As the colonies grew and time passed their connections with their roots on Earth dwindled and they lost their memories of the conflicts of the past. Soon their attention was dominated by new, more immediate conflicts. Feelings of lost ancestral connection spurred anachronism in the look of the great cities, and created a somewhat distorted image of each colony's cultural heritage. In the ever-expanding outer edge of the territories, frontier lawlessness prevailed. The Houses: Each shipboard colony that left Earth carried some memory of its origins in its name. The Liberty carried Americans, The Bretonia flew from The United Kingdom and surrounding territory, The Kusari from Asia, and the Rheinland launched with Germanic cargo. As each ship settled and colonies began to expand, they knew little about each other and their advancing development. Finally, little by little, the individual colonies found each other and began to set up trade routes to link their systems for commerce and solidarity. Today, with each colony firmly rooted in its respective corner of the galaxy, the colonies rely heavily on each other for trade and industry but also compete for resources and new territories in the Border Worlds. The colonies mandate member governments in "The New Alliance" within the Sirius sector. To control conflicts, each colony has forged alliances and treaties with others as they have grown. Competition remains fierce, however. Struggles rage for supremacy in business, commerce, resources, power and control. There can be tenuous peace between colonies' political agendas, but the grabs for holdings constantly unsettle the volatile frontier. Read less

Details

Developers: Digital Anvil
Publishers: Microsoft Game Studios
Genres: Adventure, Shooter, Simulator
Themes: Sandbox, Science fiction

Release dates

Mar 04, 2003 (Worldwide) PC (Microsoft Windows)

Standalone expansions

Discovery Freelancer (Mar 2006) · PC

Rating distribution

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Community All Reviews Statuses

Review shoma 4/5 · Mar 17, 2021

Freelancer - An entry-level Space Shooter

If you've ever been interested in games like Wing Commander, Star Citizen, the X-series from Egosoft or Elite Dangerous, but haven't tried them for whatever reason, Freelancer would be a great fit for you.

Now, Freelancer is in no way a Space Simulation game, it's a sim-lite. There are no newtonian physics, no realistic controls, even no joystick support. Instead …

Now, Freelancer is in no way a Space Simulation game, it's a sim-lite. There are no newtonian physics, no realistic controls, even no joystick support. Instead it focuses on arcade space combat with all the fluff stripped away. There is an open world, though not seamless. A system normally has several planets, some of them you can land on, there are also larger ships and stations that you can dock with. To get to a different system one uses a jumpgate which also acts as a loading screen. Stations, planets and larger ships all share the following in common:

There is a bar, where you can find a job and ask about current events
A merchant, who will sell you goods and will buy from you. You can buy cheap in some systems and sell expensive in other, though it's not a large part of the game and missions normally provide you with enough money to sustain.
Equipment and ship traders

There are also factions, some of them aggressive, some friendly. Completing missions for a certain faction will boost your rep with your employer, but there is always a faction that is negatively affected so you always have friends and foes.

The meat of the game is its combat, which is quite fun. There are many weapon types, guns, missiles, torpedoes, mines. The assignments will get gradually more difficult and your progression will be defined by higher-level equipment you will have to purchase to keep up.

The story is pretty generic and i didn't care much for it. At the end of a story mission you're given some time off so that you could freelance and explore, but I usually just did the bare minimum and moved on to a story mission, since side missions aren't really much to talk about, you just fly to an area and destroy some ships.

That's about it, a nice game, with some noticeable flaws, like lower budget which results in very little variety in voice acting, when talking to NPCs. It's very much a PC game in that regard.

There have been attempts at making games similar to Freelancer since it released, like Rebel Galaxy or Everspace, but they all have their interesting quirks, for example in Rebel Galaxy the combat is more similar to naval warfare and Everspace is a roguelike. Everspace 2, however is a proper space-game with standard progression system like Freelancer, though it's in early access. Which makes Freelancer the go-to space game for those who don't seek a hardcore simulation experience.

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