Overview

One of the first things you'll see in the FreeSpace 2 demo is the main game menu, the bridge of a Terran capital ship. The design of the graphics is reassuringly familiar and has several connections with the original FreeSpace, including the bridge window looks down upon a landing bay similar to the original FreeSpace game main menu.

The game briefings consist of short explanations of the mission objectives along with a graphic representation of the mission and its objectives. These briefings are important to the story behind FreeSpace 2, which has two writers dedicated to developing an interesting tale. Don't believe the suggestions by other previews that FreeSpace 2 will lack a storyline. They have no idea what they're talking about. Given the strength and versatility of the event-driven logic in the FreeSpace Mission Editor (FRED for short), FreeSpace can develop the story through the mission gameplay, mission briefings, command briefings, and cutscenes. These tools allow a smooth transition between story segments told through text and images, then carry the plot into the game itself through elaborate scripted sequences. In short, Volition built into FreeSpace 1 the tools which allow the storyline to be more than a series of B-quality Hollywood sequences slapped between missions.

Volition has kept the storyline of FreeSpace 2 mostly secret, but this interview with Jason Scott provides some interesting details about what happens in the months before FreeSpace 2. FreeSpace 2 begins thirty-two years after the end of the Great War (FreeSpace 1), after thirty years of reconstruction and the stabilization of the Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance (GTVA). Even without Earth and Vasudan Prime, the Terran and Vasudan societies have mostly recovered from the economic and political effects of the devastation from the Great War.

One key figure in FreeSpace 2 is a Terran rebel, Admiral Bosch, who seizes power in Polaris by exploiting the social unrest and political turmoil in a system which has never fully recovered from the war. Following Bosch's coup, the governments of Regulus and Sirius collapse and the GTVA confronts a full-scale insurgency. Admiral Bosch's actions and decisions influence the plot in FreeSpace 2. Although he only appears in a couple of missions personally, the Admiral and his personal logs will reveal his desires and fears in a series of cinematics as the story unfolds.

However, the game will continue to emphasize the impersonal juggernaut of war. You will play a virtually nameless grunt in an epic struggle, watching your wingmen drop like flies around you and knowing that anytime you might be the next one to die. Succeed and you'll live to fight another day, like a true solider. The entire outcome of the story will be influenced, sometimes heavily, by your actions, but don't expect to see the old cliche' that you're the "Last Starfighter" -- the only person with the skills and equipment who can win the war against all evil in the universe. The stories told by Volition have been dark and ambiguous, focusing more on the "realities" and horrors of waging an intergalactic war. No heroes need apply, there are only soldiers in this story. Survival is the object, not glory.

There are also many questions unanswered from the original FreeSpace: the origin of the Shivans, the fate of the Ancients, the evolution of the Terran-Vasudan Alliance, how the Vasudans rebuilt after the destruction of their homeworld, what happened to the rebel Vasudans in the Hammer of Light, and what happened to Earth after the collapse of the Sol jump node. Part of this story will involve your flying with the Vasudan Navy, which should allow us to learn more about the "chumps" who were once the fourteen-year enemy of Terrans before the arrival of the Shivans and the start of the Great War.

With all of these plot elements to draw upon, Volition may be correct that the storyline of FreeSpace 2 will be one of its richest features.

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