I was playing some Everspace 2 and while it sure is pretty and feels pretty good there was something lacking that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I’m only 20 hours or so into it but I just felt like it wasn’t quite living up to my memories of Freelancer.
Now I last played Freelancer over 15 years ago so I was sure that I was just seeing this through a heavy mist of nostalgia, so I reinstalled the old game, installed the HD mod and a few other user made tweaks and loaded it up. The opening scenes were definitely nostalgic but once I started to fly missions properly again it became crystal clear, nope Freelancer still kicks the shit out of every other space game I’ve ever played since.
Elite Dangerous, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, Everspace 2, Spacebourne 2, EVE Online, (edit adding more I’ve played here: Chorus, Star Citizen, No Mans Sky) they all have strengths but nothing feels as good as the grand daddy Freelancer.
People keep saying they don't deliver but they have been delivering. The game gets a new build every quarter with updates and new content. Players are still technically playing a development build so it's full of bugs and only limited to one star system but that one star system is huge with 4 planets, 7 stations and lots of points of interest.
Yes and that's why I didn't say they are slacking off or stealing money. I said the project management sucks. Because they constantly shift their goals instead of defining and finishing up the game. That also doesn't mean they need to stop then.
Look at No Mans Sky. They didn't stop after the release. Chris Roberts could have done something similar. Instead of acting impulsive on his ideas, he could have collected them for the next update of the game.