Descent: Freespace – the Great War, also known as Conflict: Freespace – the Great War in Europe (or more simply as Freespace), is a 1998 space combat sim developed by Volition and published by Interplay for the PC. Volition is largely made up of the former members of Parallax, which split into two separate companies after the release of Descent II (the other company being the now defunct Outrage).

Freespace is not a very unique or innovative game of its sort, but that’s part of why it’s fun. The game does not innovate. Freespace merely took the norms of the genre, refined them, and focused on presenting the story well. The game’s highlight, for me, is the sense of scale. The game has small, one-man fighters and bombers (which you fly) and huge capital ships (which you’ll take down and, quite often, defend). The vastness of space only serves to highlight how huge these ships can be. This is a game when you can spend a minute or two flying from one conflict to another, and when you turn your ship around to see a destroyer taking up 20% of the screen, it’s a bit awe-inspiring.

Graphically, the game shows its age. Textures are muddy and details will sometimes be drawn in very quickly for the larger ships; the particles that fly towards you, the detail of the small

fighters, and the explosions make up for this. In-game, you forget about the agedness of the game’s engine as you’re too busy listening to the hums and roars of the ship’s engines, and trying to survive waves and waves of enemy attack.

The gameplay, as previously mentioned, is not innovative. The game is just dog fighting in space and your missions are typically “defend target A” or “destroy all enemy opposition.” However, there still is mission variety. One highlight for me is a mission where you are required to pilot a captured ship to gather intelligence on enemy cargo and the ships they’re gathering for an invasion. The mission is essentially a stealth mission – you need to avoid the patrols (however you’re warned when you’re approaching patrol ships), get close to some targets to gather information, and jet to the next target to gather intelligence. It does its job of creating tension as you see bigger and bigger ships enter the system from subspace until you see the biggest capital ship of the game, up close and personal.

Freespace can be purchased and downloaded from GoG.com. Physical copies can be bought from sites such as eBay and Amazon.com.

Related games:

Freespace 2 can be purchased from the same places as Freespace.

Descent series, the first two were developed by Parallax and the third game (and its expansion) was developed by Outrage. All three are for the PC (and like the Freespace, available from GoG). Descent and Descent II also appeared on the Playstation. Despite the name of the first Freespace game, there is no connection to the Descent series – it was added to the title to avoid copyright issues with the Freespace name.

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I-War or Independence War, released in 1997, features more realistic physics (Freespace’s physics are more based around WW2 flight-sims, since the development team thought they lent themselves to more entertaining gameplay).

Star Wars has had very similar space combat games, the X-Wing games for DOS and Windows are the most similar (the last entry of these games was X-Wing Alliance, in 1999. TIE Fighter, released in 1994, is considered the best of the series).

Babylon 5, which ran from 1993-1998, has a very similar universe and antagonist. The cancellation of the planned B5 flight-sim caused fans of the show to make a total conversion for Freespace 2 set in the same universe.

The Colony Wars series on the Playstation offers a slightly more arcade-y feel, but is another good dog fighting game in space.

Other games, such as the X series, offer much more in-depth experiences, with the ability to play the role of a merchant.