#FREESPACE 2 BLUE PLANET UPDATE#
#FREESPACE 2 BLUE PLANET FULL#
#FREESPACE 2 BLUE PLANET CODE#

Most of the other projects are based on science-fiction television shows or movies. The primary project FS2 Open takes advantage of the upgraded engine for FreeSpace 2. The end result of this project is to create a graphically superior (and far more flexible) game engine, while still retaining all of the gameplay elements that made FreeSpace 2 successful. These packs include higher-poly models and higher resolution textures.

#FREESPACE 2 BLUE PLANET UPDATE#

In addition, content update packs have been developed which take advantage of the upgraded game engine. Previous leaders also include Ian 'Goober5000' Warfield, Taylor Richards, Cliff 'Chief1983' Gordon and Fabian 'The E' Woltermann. Initially led by Edward 'Inquisitor' Gardner, the team is currently led by Tyler 'DahBlount' Blount.

#FREESPACE 2 BLUE PLANET CODE#

To prevent a plethora of different versions of the game from appearing, a single 'umbrella' project (with the unified goal of enhancing the game) under the name FreeSpace 2 Source Code Project was formed. However, because the source code is under a noncommercial license, it does not qualify as free and open source software. This allowed modders the possibility of modifying the game engine almost without limitations. Without any viable use for the source code, Volition's Dave Baranec released the source code for FreeSpace 2 's game engine on 25 April 2002. With Interplay Entertainment holding the licenses for the FreeSpace series, Volition could not continue to develop the series. To this day, the gameplay still holds up well.Volition, the company responsible for developing the game FreeSpace 2 was bought by THQ in 2000. Thankfully they're using an AppImage now so running FS2 Open is reasonably easy across distributions. See the FS2 Open update announcement here (plus GitHub).

Note: You do need to have the original data files for Freespace 2, you can pick up a copy easily on GOG.com. If you've never played it with the MediaVPs, it really does make Freespace 2 look a lot better. The MediaVPs update includes new animations, new sound effects and even more high-resolution art. These are the extra files you can download and enable, which contain all of the enhanced artwork and graphics that take advantage of the new capabilities of the FS2 Open. Wonderful to see it alive and well!ДЄlong with the update to the FS2 Open game engine, they also put up a refresh of their MediaVPs.

#FREESPACE 2 BLUE PLANET FULL#

There's also now full Unicode text support, pilot files now use JSON instead of the old custom binary format, support for the Discord Rich Presence API, they added support for displaying decals on the surface of an object and loads more. It pulls in various OpenGL optimisations with animations now using texture arrays and 'model uniforms get sent to the GPU using uniform buffers for less overhead' plus other apparently minor graphics changes. Version 19.0.0 went up in January and it's quite a big one too. While it's not technically open source, Volition did give the code to the community to keep it alive. One I'm genuinely surprised I missed (Hat tip to Timo) is a big update to FS2 Open, the project that continues updating the game engine for Freespace 2 - one of the best space action games ever.

Freespace 2 blue planet