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Star Control creators working on direct sequel to Star Control 2

Ghosts of the Precursors is their new “passion project”

Star Control 2 box art
The cover art for Accolade’s 1992 classic, Star Control 2
Michael McWhertor is a journalist with more than 17 years of experience covering video games, technology, movies, TV, and entertainment.

Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III, the designers of the first two Star Control games, say they’re working on a new title that they describe as a direct sequel to Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters.

Their new game is titled Ghosts of the Precursors and is described as “early, early in development.”

It’s been 25 years since Star Control 2 hit DOS PCs, and although then-publisher Accolade released numbered sequels to that game, they were done without the direct involvement of Ford and Reiche. Now, they say they’re ready to return to the strategic space combat of Star Control.

“We poured our hearts into the game, blending our love for classic science fiction, Spacewar!-style action gameplay and our own quirky sense of humor,” Ford and Reiche wrote on their website. “We had tons of help from many talented friends and collaborators, but even so getting the game across the finish line was a herculean effort — both the exciting, hydra-fighting kind, as well as the exhausting stable-cleaning kind. 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 ...”

Ford and Reiche co-founded Toys for Bob, the studio best known for its work on the Skylanders franchise at Activision. Ford and Reiche, who still serve as chief technical officer and president of Toys for Bob, respectively, say they’ve “committed to dedicating some of our own time to creating a true sequel” to Star Control 2.

If you’re wondering why they’re not using the name Star Control for Ghosts of the Precursors, that’s because developer Stardock acquired the rights to that franchise in 2013 and is working on a game of its own, Star Control: Origins.

Meanwhile, other early PC gaming figureheads have returned to their space-faring roots, like David Braben and Elite: Dangerous, a sequel to 1995's Frontier: First Encounters, and Chris Roberts, the designer behind the Wing Commander series, taking up the crowdfunded Star Citizen.

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