Where did Spaceship Flight Combat Games go?

Where did the Star Fox, the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, the Star Wars: Episode I: Racer, the X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter games go? I am not as interested in simulators (whether driving or flying) but in the arcade types. Why are they all gone? Where did they go? Will they make a come back?

My favorite games growing up were pod-racing, rouge squadron and star fox. While I this past generation I got into third-person action-adventure-sandbox games I long am awaiting the space-flight-combat genre's return.

Sadly, this is a genre that has been pretty light in the last decade. Fortunately, the proliferation of indie dev studios and crowdsourced campaigns are just now starting to bring it back.

If you're specifically looking for more arcadey combat sims, I strong recommend Strike Suit Zero and Strike Suit Infinity for PC (but coming to Xbone and PS4).

If you have a 360, Project Silpheed was also right up your alley:

Star Citizen (mentioned above) is the single game that everyoen who's a fan of this genre is probably most looking forward to, but it's a full on open "world" space simulation complete with AI trading, missions and economy so it might not be your cup of tea. Many of the other games in this genre try to emulate Privateer rather than the more arcade-style space combat sims.

-Byshop

I think I read somewhere that Elite was getting a remake via Kickstarter. It was before my time but I know that Elite was a massive hit on the Commodore 64 in the eighties or nineties. Oh hang on I think it's in one of the videos above.

Yeah, there's a video for it in the first reponse under the Star Citizen video. I'm cautiously optimistically looking forward to it.

-Byshop

Yeh, looks like it has a lot of potential.

They didn't go anywhere. They're just as Popular as they've always been. Everything else has just been getting more popular while it stays the same so by comparison it seems to have receded.

That statement makes no sense. If your point is that the sales numbers for space combat sims have been level while other genres got more popular, that's a useless point since popularity is always relative AND it's factually incorrect because space combat sims sales numbers have dropped a lot since they were popular.

The space combat sim genre has pretty much been abandoned by major development studios. In the early days of PC gaming, sims were to PC gaming what FPS games are to it now. When you went to a game store, virtually every other title was a flight sim or flight combat sim and the rest were mostly puzzle and rpg titles. Simulation games have always been a semi-niche category of gaming, but back then gaming at all was pretty niche.

When the original Wing Commander came out, it was one of the most popular PC games at the time (for anyoen who could run it). By comparison, games like Freespace 2 (regarded as one of the best space combat sims of all time) did alright but not fantastic (fewer than 100k copies). Sim City 3000 was released the same year on PC and has sold a total of 5 million copies.

-Byshop

@ Byshop

Yeah I didn't say anything about sales numbers nor did I say it was or was not Popular. Infact my post is so ambiguous it doesn't actually say anything.

-Lulu

Exactly. Why post if you aren't even trying to contribute to the conversation?

-Byshop

@ Byshop

Why question it ? Why question me specifically ?

You're not going to get anything worth hearing ask stupid questions like why people are the way they are on the internet. You've been here longer than me. You should know better.

No, I mean what do you get out of it? Do you find trolling entertaining? That sounds very sad.

-Byshop

Sigh......

Whatever. You contacted me.

Mr. Self Absorbed.

I didn't "contact" you, I replied to your post. This post, like many others that you post, seem deliberately designed to troll. My question is why do you do this?

-Byshop

@ Byshop

Trolling ?

You might wana ask why you engaged me in the 1st place. Need I remind you you're the one who jumped to conclusions before you understood my post.

I get it. You don't like me. don't really care. You engaged me 1st on a misunderstanding.

You should know better.

You're also disrupting this thread on some petty attempt to villainize me. Even if I were a troll its not worth you derailing this discusion just to 1 up me.

You're such a hypocrit.

Next time if you have nothing to say, don't post.

-Byshop

@ Byshop

Thats good advice. Try following it yourself some time.

@jasonredemption: Strike Suit Zero Director's Cut just became available for PC earlier today. In terms of what you've specifically asked for, this is the best example of an "arcade" style space combat sim that I've played in years. The combat is frantic and fast, the graphics are great and the music and gameplay are heavily anime inspired. Many of the games mentioned in this thread are either good games now or likely will be good games once they are released, but if you aren't looking for a full simulation then most of them are probably not what you are looking for. Most fans of this genre enjoy the complexity of trading, piracy, bounty hunting, resource management, and even base building.

-Byshop

Yep just downloaded Strike Suit Zero Director's Cut for the XB1. Played through the first two missions for a couple of hours and was pleasantly surprised. Quite enjoyable gameplay. The graphics are certainly not pushing any boundaries and it has no multiplayer but the single player campaign looks quite solid and I will play this one through as soon as I get some time.

I've already played through SSZ and SSI (mostly, the last mission of Heroes of the Fleet is freakin' impossible and I'm stuck 2 or 3 missions from the end of SSI). I'm looking forward to playing the Director's Cut this weekend. I opted for the PC version because I'm playing on this:

Needless to say, I'm eagerly looking forward to more games in this genre.

-Byshop

Wow, did you build that rig yourself. It's quite impressive.

Purchased and assembled. It's one of these:

http://obutto.com/index.php/gaming-cockpits/r3volution-gaming-cockpit/

It took no small amount of effort. The monitors are three Dell u2711 27" IPS displays. The flight stick is a Saitek X-52 and I also have a Logitech g27 wheel that mounts on there as well.

-Byshop

Have you tried Space Engineers? You can have some space fights.

@Byshop said:

@gannon27 said:

Yep just downloaded Strike Suit Zero Director's Cut for the XB1. Played through the first two missions for a couple of hours and was pleasantly surprised. Quite enjoyable gameplay. The graphics are certainly not pushing any boundaries and it has no multiplayer but the single player campaign looks quite solid and I will play this one through as soon as I get some time.

I've already played through SSZ and SSI (mostly, the last mission of Heroes of the Fleet is freakin' impossible and I'm stuck 2 or 3 missions from the end of SSI). I'm looking forward to playing the Director's Cut this weekend. I opted for the PC version because I'm playing on this:

Needless to say, I'm eagerly looking forward to more games in this genre.

-Byshop

Nice setup man. Even though Im not into spaceship flight combat games, this would make me want to play them. The last spaceship I played was wing commander.

It's just as good for racing and mech sims.

-Byshop

Wasdie made a good post on this over on System Wars. In short, space combat games are still getting made, it's just that it's a mostly PC endeavor now, and those games are usually made possible through Kickstarter or crowd-funding. Look up the games he mentions in the post, they might be what you're looking for.

Chris Roberts does it again!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TWQFSzQyeM#t=28