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Interplay secures rights to Freespace for $7,500

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Publisher Interplay have activated their tractor beams and pulled in the abandoned space vessel once known as Freespace for a mere $7,500. The classic PC series is known to be the last of the ‘Space Combat Game’ design, before almost all traces of the model were wiped out during the invasion of the World War II Shooters.

Kotaku have reported that Interplay have managed to salvage the rights to the Freespace franchise from the wreckage of THQ. The original games were originally developed by Volition, and were released in 1998 and 1999. Whilst Interplay originally published both of the Freespace games, Volition was purchased by THQ in 2000, and the rights to Freespace along with them. Now for the considerably small (for the games industry world) sum of $7,500, the rights to produce and publish any future Freespace games is firmly in Interplay’s hands.

The space combat series continues to be fondly remembered by those who lived during the genre’s glory days, and the Freespace 2 engine has since been made open source. Projects such as the popular Battlestar Galactica-themed mod Diaspora are just one of many games built using the Freespace 2 engine.