The story of Star Control: Origins begins in 2013 with the collapse of publisher Atari SA, owners of the Star Control license since their acquisition of Accolade in 1999. In the subsequent bankruptcy auction, the license was picked up by strategy game developer Stardock, who soon revealed their intention to produce the first new Star Control game in over 15 years. After what appears to have been a lengthy period of preproduction, Star Control: Origins was officially unveiled in late 2016 as a kind of reboot/reimagining of the Star Control continuity, set in a universe with entirely new alien races. Many of us were skeptical of this idea, but Stardock were serious about the project and pressed on.

Things took a turn for the wild a year later when the original creators of Star Control, Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford, announced their intention to create a Star Control game of their own - and almost immediately became embroiled in a vicious intellectual property dispute with Stardock. Tentatively titled Ghosts of the Precursors, Reiche & Ford's game was to be a proper sequel to the legendary second game in the series, for which they still owned the substantive copyrights. It's not clear what preceded what, but it was around this point that Stardock CEO Brad Wardell appears to have made the decision to add some of the alien races from the original games to Origins after all, albeit with different visual appearances and new backstories.

Bystanders soon took sides, with certain figures in the mainstream media predictably aligning with Reiche & Ford against the occasionally outspoken Wardell, and some of those who dislike said media reflexively siding with Wardell. The legal trench warfare has presumably continued behind the scenes, but it didn't stop Star Control: Origins from being released today. Here's the launch trailer and description:


Most of the launch day reviews are quite positive, with the notable exception of IGN and GameSpot, whose reviewers seem to approve of the game's writing but find its arcade action elements tedious.


I have to say that my own impression is that Stardock have done some legally questionable things here - but I also don't care. At the RPG Codex, we're all about games first, and right now Stardock are the only ones who have a game. But is it a good game? If any of us ever get around to playing it after this crazy September, maybe we'll tell you. Star Control: Origins is available now on Steam and GOG for $40.