I recently learned that March 2023 is the twentieth anniversary of Freelancer. Developed by Digital Anvil and published by Microsoft Game Studios, Freelancer never seemed to be as popular as I feel it deserves. I loved it back in college during the mid-2000s and still consider it one of my favorite games. In honor of its twentieth birthday on March 4, I decided to get Freelancer back up and running and see if it still holds the magic I remember. I knew this might be an ordeal because Freelancer has some general accessibility problems.
One of my biggest retro gaming complaints is the lack of Freelancer on Steam or GoG. The game is not available for purchase anywhere other than CD versions on eBay. Freelancer CD images are available on various abandonware sites and Archive.org. It seems the rights holders are not too concerned with wielding the copyright hammer since these CD images can be found within thirty seconds of searching. Installing games using CD images is not difficult. But it is more difficult than clicking a few times on GoG. The lack of an updated release does more than prevent me from tossing a few bucks toward the appropriate people; it severely limits Freelancer’s long-term exposure.
I wish Freelancer had a GoG release. GoG has been a godsend for retro PC gamers. Since its founding as Good Old Games, GoG has focused on making old games run on modern computers. I don’t understand all the details, but I know that the jump from Windows XP/7 to Windows 10 was big, and many older games are not compatible with Windows 10 without some tinkering. I tried to install it on my Windows 10 tablet PC. Even after reading hundreds of forum posts and installing dozens of fan patches, Freelancer rotated 90 degrees on my monitor. I finally got it working after I dug out an old laptop still running Windows 7. There’s no widescreen support so I am stuck playing it at stretched 1024×728. The resolution can be bumped up to 1152×846, but it doesn’t work on my computer. I want a modern release of Freelancer incorporating all the necessary patches for modern computers. If Freelancer is destined to stay as it is, the only people willing to put in the effort to make it work will already be fans. Most people will not spend two hours trying to install a twenty-year-old game. But a $10 GoG or Microsoft release could bring Freelancer back to life.
Anyway, I’ve played for three hours so far and I am hooked all over again. The music, the controls, and the exploration still feel great. The space backgrounds are gorgeous. Even the linear story is working for me. Freelancer at twenty is absolutely worth a retro gamer’s time. I just wish it wasn’t so damn difficult to install.
The Keasy Depot 