Set in the year 2086, Earth has received a distress call from inside our own solar system leading to the formation of Earth’s first united space exploration force, Star Control.  The player takes on the role of The Captain to investigate the transmission which leads to the rest of the galaxy learning of the existence of the Earthlings.

To that end, Star Control: Origins allows players to land on planets that are now represented as spherical entities with the gameplay updated to allow the lander to jump obstacles, rotate their lander’s cannon and deal with hostile environments and creatures.

Like the classic series, Star Control focuses on the player’s interaction with alien races.  Star Control: Origins introduces a new cast of aliens for the player to learn and deal with. Using the game’s dynamic rendering system, the aliens and their speech are rendered in real-time.

For the music, Stardock has been working to reunite the musicians worked on the previous games. For example, Riku Nuottajarvi, composer of much of the music for the original series, has returned for the new Star Control series.  Meanwhile, for the writing, Stardock has tapped Cracked.com columnist, Chris Bucholz to lead the story and writing effort.

Our original release date was going to be November 2017.  That's exactly 25 years from the release of Star Control 2 (The Ur-Quan Masters).  Some design changes we made have extended the development time (which I'll be talking more about soon) but we will be releasing the Super Melee beta in time for the anniversary.

Stardock announced a new tier for the Star Control: Origins’ Founders Program. In addition to our Founders program, we also have a Lifetime Founders program. Both will gain access to our internal vault of content and all content released a year after we launch the game, but the Lifetime Founders will receive any additional content for the life of the game. Considering how often we update our games with new content, I can tell you the Lifetime Founders tier is a fantastic deal.

In the next two weeks, Stardock will be ending the Founder's Program as we prepare for a public Beta program.  If you want to join the Founder's Program it's not too late yet.