Games like freelancer/privateer?

[YES!]

I did a internet search for games like privateer and freelancer type games and it gave my sites with tons of compiled lists. I guess "games like" is popular enough to have a bunch of websites devoted to it.

I was very surprised to see certain games on it, like X3 or whatever that series is called. Looking on steam didn't really let me know if it actually is like privateer. Is it?

Also-
I'm looking for a game like Freelancer more than Privateer. Most of these types of games I play don't have a ton of content and have generic repetitive missions to follow and extremely boring mining of asteroids. Rebel Galaxy was okay, and a set horizon was a great idea, but it was still repetitive and boring.

When it comes to these games I am more like a stupid hack. I tried that new fancy smancy one that came out but I still was trying to make the controls comfortable when my two hour window for returns was closing so returned it. What would be ideal is Freelancer with character development and better ship development, but sophomoric gameplay that doesn't require you to mainly waste your time flying from boring navpoint to do boring to another super long boring flight to another navpoint to have a minute of action and another super long boring flight.

I played Freelancer on a streaming service when those were popular in the early to mid 00s so don't own it so can't fire it up to see if I still like it. I tried this Russian Privateer like MMO and gave it a good shot but it seems I really suck as these games as I was useless in missions and was no challenge to anyone in pvp.

I don't like this genre enough to really get into it and learn the complex games. And all the easier ones like Dark Orbit, etc, seem to have minimal story and maximum repetition, unlike Freelancer which was all pretty decent story missions from what I remember. To use an rpg analogy, if privateer was Daggerfall, and Freelancer was Morrowinf/Oblivion, I'm looking for Skyrim. I'm not looking for a deep, meaty, and complex rpg that is made for true fans of the genre - I just want some easy shit for shitheads who want a guided story without the boring nonsense like Freelancer, and if there is rpg-like character development and better ship development system all the better.

Thank you for any assistance.

 

[Raapys]

There's Freespace 2 (with the FS2Open mod). It's purely mission-based though, no open world nonsense and no char development. Upgrades are mission based. It's also the best story-based space sim in existence.

There's Independence War 2. Best flight mechanics in the genre, has some open world but it's not used much outside of hijacking some freighter cargo. Can trade and upgrade shit, but no char development. Forgettable story.

If you want something slightly different, there's also the Star Wolves series. Plays more like RTWP tactical game (you control a capital ship and a group of fighters) though. Upgrades and char development for pilots. Purely missions for the first one, boring open world in the sequels.

Simple fact is that there's really not that many of these games though. The X series qualify, in a way, but they're more about building an industrial empire in space than anything else. The indie-developer candidates are mostly shallow multiplayer games.

 

[warpig]

So you are looking for space games with open world but focused on combat and without the boring crap like mining etc. No games like this made today sorry XD.
Maybe this is close enough to what you are looking for:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/396750/EVERSPACE/
It's kind of like Freelancer(combat and flight) meets FTL(the 'structure' of the game)


X3 is not in the same category as Freelancer and Privateer..more focused on "empire building" than dogfighting action and progressing through the story.

Independence War 2 is great and would somewhat fit into your description but it's more complex and difficult than the games you mentioned.

And yeah...you should play Freespace games if you havent already. No open world and no repetitive grinding crap...each mission is different. Same with the Star Wars games (X-Wing, Tie Fighter, X-Wing Alliance...unlike Freespace you will need a joystick for those though).

 

[YES!]

Thank you guys for the recommendations. I have the Star Wolves games but they are not dogfighter or whatever the correct term is. They do have really nice party building and itemization though. I also have the Gemini games too including the new one.

Everspace looks good, but for $30 verus 10 or 6 for Freespace 2 or Independence War 2 respectively I'll have to try one of the later.

Besides the FS2Open, any recommended mods for FS2 you guys know of off the top of your head that adds in good stuff like more and better ship upgrades?


Thank you guys again, great recommendations.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

fs2 vanilla is already perfect.

 

[CreamyBlood]

Freespace 2 is definitely worth playing and works fine with mouse and keyboard. I haven't played it for years but I think it was with FSOpen. The only mods I used were the graphic updates as I recall.

But now that I think about it I remember installing something that let me spawn a billion capital ships and went on some kind of rampage. I don't know. Maybe I was just dicking around in the editor. Great game though.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

also because fs2 is fair: there's no such thing as "impossible odds", if you're skilled you can destroy anything, and i'm not talking retarded shit like "park in the blind spot and put a rock on the left mouse button" as for the x series, you can potentially dodge every bullet and destroy every ship, even capitals (except one, but only because it's invincible for plot reasons), all by yourself. you have all the means to survive, but learning how and when to use them requires skill and learning.

damn, i love that game.

 

[Icewater]

Besides the FS2Open, any recommended mods for FS2 you guys know of off the top of your head that adds in good stuff like more and better ship upgrades?

Freespace 2 doesn't have much in the way of mods for the original campaign, beyond graphical upgrades. There's plenty of really good fan-made campaigns, though. Blue Planet, Procyon Insurgency, and Silent Threat: Reborn are some my favorites but there's plenty of really good ones.

 

[Arrowgrab]

Hmm, not sure it might be what you're looking for, but what about Transcendence?

Top-down "Asteroids-style" presentation and control. Roguelike game structure, with a linear progression from star system to start system towards the end of the game, but with some backtracking, and most systems are semi-randomly generated. Some simple hand-crafted missions, but most of the complexity comes from tactical challenges ("Okay, I'll just draw away these defenders towards this other starbase which is hostile to everyone, let them fight each other") and logistics ("Do I spend this much money on this new gun? Is it going to be useful in the upcoming situations? This armor is heavier, but offers extra protection against particle weapons, will I see enemies with those?")

I like it, and the base game is free, so you have nothing to lose by checking it out.

 

[Morkar Left]

Hmm, not sure it might be what you're looking for, but what about Transcendence?

Top-down "Asteroids-style" presentation and control. Roguelike game structure, with a linear progression from star system to start system towards the end of the game, but with some backtracking, and most systems are semi-randomly generated. Some simple hand-crafted missions, but most of the complexity comes from tactical challenges ("Okay, I'll just draw away these defenders towards this other starbase which is hostile to everyone, let them fight each other") and logistics ("Do I spend this much money on this new gun? Is it going to be useful in the upcoming situations? This armor is heavier, but offers extra protection against particle weapons, will I see enemies with those?")

I like it, and the base game is free, so you have nothing to lose by checking it out.

If Escape-Velocity-likes like Transcendence would be a thing for you, you might as well try Endless Sky which is completely free.

Otherwise I recommend I-War 2 as well. With mods you can even buy ships and sell and trade with credits instead only having access to the blackmarket.

Battlestar Diaspora might be thing as well but it doesn't have freeplay.

A heavily modded Oolite might fit your need as well. It has story missions mods but it will take some time till you're up to the tasks. And the presentation and combat isn't that great.

 

[:Flash:]

There's Tachyon: The Fringe. A great mission based space-shooter that is a little more Open-World-ish than Freelancer, but only minimally so. You play as a mercenary and can accept missions from both factions at first but later have to decide which side you're going with. That's the only place the story branches, but in contrast to other mission-based space games it doesn't drop you into random new levels each time, but instead happens in a defined number of sectors, with space stations that you can land on, etc. One of my favourite Space games.

Then there's also Darkstar: One, which is a direct Freelancer clone, but I haven't played it so I can't comment on it.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i played it and i prefer to not comment any further.

 

[mpxd]

Tachyon is good fun and has pretty decent voice acting (Bruce Campbell). There was an attempt at porting it to the fs2open engine, but I'm not sure if that's still alive -- what somehow still remains of the multiplayer community frequents that site though.

More recently, there's also House of the Dying Sun. There's ship upgrades and some vague backstory, but the dogfighting is the main focus. Entertaining, but pretty short overall (10-15ish missions?).

Also second I-War 2 for the flight mechanics.

And stay away from Darkstar: One.

 

[bertram_tung]

Independence War 2 is the best out of any game mentioned in this thread. Casuals beware.

 

[CreamyBlood]

I know it's off on a tangent compared to what the OP is asking for but I always like to mention Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Yes, it's not open world, is mission based and not the same thing as requested but it's in SPACE. And is still dear to my heart.

 

[Perkel]

Freelancer is crap economic space sim which is why you didn't like mining and shit.

X3 Terran Conflict + Xtended 2.0+ is where it's at.

Unlike 99% space sims out there this gives you ability to fly anything you can see out there in space (maybe outside few alien ships).

With this you can basically build your own armada of ships from small scout ships to carriers along with taking on whole sectors fighting actually war with other factions if you want.

Fighting model itself is comparable to Freelancer but unlike freelancer here you can take anyone and anything as you can form wingmen groups to support you.

Nothing feels as awesome as starting small fight with someone, he calls backup. Some nasty corvette comes in which can obliterate you quickly then you order your own carrier to hyperspace jump into this sector and sweep that corvette with bombers.

Then after a mission dock with fleet in your own station and resupply ships with missles and ammunion you personally produced at your factories.

 

[Blake00]

I did a internet search for games like privateer and freelancer type games and it gave my sites with tons of compiled lists. I guess "games like" is popular enough to have a bunch of websites devoted to it.

I was very surprised to see certain games on it, like X3 or whatever that series is called. Looking on steam didn't really let me know if it actually is like privateer. Is it?

Also-
I'm looking for a game like Freelancer more than Privateer. Most of these types of games I play don't have a ton of content and have generic repetitive missions to follow and extremely boring mining of asteroids. Rebel Galaxy was okay, and a set horizon was a great idea, but it was still repetitive and boring.

When it comes to these games I am more like a stupid hack. I tried that new fancy smancy one that came out but I still was trying to make the controls comfortable when my two hour window for returns was closing so returned it. What would be ideal is Freelancer with character development and better ship development, but sophomoric gameplay that doesn't require you to mainly waste your time flying from boring navpoint to do boring to another super long boring flight to another navpoint to have a minute of action and another super long boring flight.

I played Freelancer on a streaming service when those were popular in the early to mid 00s so don't own it so can't fire it up to see if I still like it. I tried this Russian Privateer like MMO and gave it a good shot but it seems I really suck as these games as I was useless in missions and was no challenge to anyone in pvp.

I don't like this genre enough to really get into it and learn the complex games. And all the easier ones like Dark Orbit, etc, seem to have minimal story and maximum repetition, unlike Freelancer which was all pretty decent story missions from what I remember. To use an rpg analogy, if privateer was Daggerfall, and Freelancer was Morrowinf/Oblivion, I'm looking for Skyrim. I'm not looking for a deep, meaty, and complex rpg that is made for true fans of the genre - I just want some easy shit for shitheads who want a guided story without the boring nonsense like Freelancer, and if there is rpg-like character development and better ship development system all the better.

Thank you for any assistance.

I'm a huge Freelancer fan (so much so I run the Freelancer Facebook group lol) and often look for similar games. There's actually a bunch of similar games to FL I've been following such as Starpoint Gemini 3's beta testing (very Freelancer like, far more than previous SP games), Everspace 2 (who've dropped the random rogue like stuff for Freelancer like open world), Rebel Galaxy Outlaw's (much more FL like than previous RG games but still very WCP like if you don't like that) post release progress to see if they do addons (as it sounds a bit barebones), and X4 - Foundations's (which added FL like walking around ships & stations visiting bars etc) addon/patching progress (however X games are very complicated and get more complicated with each new game so you probably wouldn't like that lol).

Freelancer is crap economic space sim which is why you didn't like mining and shit.

X3 Terran Conflict + Xtended 2.0+ is where it's at.

Unlike 99% space sims out there this gives you ability to fly anything you can see out there in space (maybe outside few alien ships).

With this you can basically build your own armada of ships from small scout ships to carriers along with taking on whole sectors fighting actually war with other factions if you want.

Fighting model itself is comparable to Freelancer but unlike freelancer here you can take anyone and anything as you can form wingmen groups to support you.

Nothing feels as awesome as starting small fight with someone, he calls backup. Some nasty corvette comes in which can obliterate you quickly then you order your own carrier to hyperspace jump into this sector and sweep that corvette with bombers.

Then after a mission dock with fleet in your own station and resupply ships with missles and ammunion you personally produced at your factories.

100% agree. To me Terran Conflict is that perfect moment in the series where everything feels just right (particularly becuase of the upgrade to the mission system to be more FL like). However admittedly I still haven't properly played X Rebirth or X4 as my current machine won't run them. I like the look of you being able to walk around ships and stations visiting bars in X4 like in FL however I hear it gets boring quickly sadly.

It's funny I love both Freelancer and the X series and don't hold one over the other as I love their differences. Eg when I started replaying Freelancer a few years ago I found my self missing the gorgeous graphics of X3 and the ability to fly any ship in the game and build my own stations, and even build stations fore the pirates and turn their backwater pirate bases into giant pirate trading empires haha. Yet when I then started playing X again I found myself missing the immersion and dramatic cinematic feel of Freelancer, I missed the news service, visiting bars and listening to the music in-between missions. So I suspect I'll always be bouncing between both to get my fix lol.