Star Control II developers working on ‘direct sequel’ 25 years later

The brains behind Star Control II are resurrecting the series a quarter of a century after the last real entry in the sci-fi series. Creators Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III announced today that they are coming back to do a legitimate sequel. The project doesn’t have a release date, platform, or pricing info yet, but it does have a name: Ghosts of the Precursors.

Star Control II is a beloved PC game. It debuted for Microsoft DOS in 1992, and it enabled players to explore a galaxy as part of a story-heavy adventure. Ghost of the Precursors is still early in development, and Ford and Reiche haven’t expressed how they’ll adapt the classic gameplay for modern audiences. But they did promise all of the alien races from Star Control II will return in the new game.

“It was almost exactly 25 years ago that we released Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters for DOS PCs,” Ford and Reiche wrote in a blog post. “Pretty much ever since then, fans have been politely asking us to create a sequel, sometimes begging for a sequel, even threatening us if we don’t make a sequel. Our answer was always, “We really want to do this, we just need to wait until the time is right” — kind of like Cthulhu awakening, but less end-of-the-worldy.  Well, the stars have finally aligned — we are now working on a direct sequel to Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters, called Ghosts of the Precursors.”

This is a surprising development because the rights for the Star Control series have passed from one company to another until Sins of a Solar Empire developer Stardock acquired them in 2013. Wardell has come out to reveal that Ford and Reiche will have full access to the Star Control II creative galaxy and lore despite it not being a Stardock project.

This will be an independent effort on their part but will have the aliens from Star Control II in it.

— Brad Wardell (@draginol) October 9, 2017

“This is a passion project for us and we have committed to dedicating some of our own time to creating a true sequel,” reads Ford and Reiche’s blog.

Fans will have to wait some time before they see how this manifests, but hey — they’re used to waiting.