Star Control: Origins is set in the year 2086. The good news: the signals from Earth have been received by an advanced alien race. The bad news: they are looking for the source of the signals in order to annihilate them. As Captain of the most advanced starship the human race has ever constructed, the player's mission is to prevent the impending destruction of the Earth through any means necessary.

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.

Stardock and Frungy Games (Paul Reiche & Fred Ford) have announced that we have reached a settlement that greatly benefits all fans of the series.

Game Developers Stardock Entertainment, Paul Reiche and Fred Ford have amicably settled the dispute concerning the tangled intellectual property rights that surrounded the 30-year old game franchise.

In a statement released by Paul Reiche on their website, Mr. Reiche wrote, "Paul and Fred have offered to volunteer their own creativity to Origins by teaming up with Brad to create some new aliens and plot lines for Stardock's future Star Control games."

The settlement agreement, while itself confidential, expressly makes the terms available to the public.

"Paul and I both insisted to the lawyers that the terms should not be confidential," said Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock.  "We really wanted to make sure the fans didn't have to speculate on how we came together on this and that it was genuinely something that resulted in both sides getting what they wanted out of the situation."

The dispute revolved around the murky dividing line between what trademarks cover and what copyrights cover. Stardock claimed the trademarks to the classic series and Paul Reiche claimed the copyrights. The issue came to a head when both parties announced new games that appeared related to Star Control.

After a year of litigation, the dispute was ultimately solved by Reiche calling Wardell directly, bypassing the lawyers, and the two finding a lot of common ground on a wide range of topics ranging from game design to beekeeping.

"The magic trick to resolving this was just picking up the phone and calling each other directly," said Reiche. "Brad suggested this back in 2017 and it worked! By talking directly to each other, we were actually able to put something together that we both liked before all the legal mumbo-jumbo got in the way."

Once the two talked about what each really cared about, coming to a resolution was swift.

"We figured out what we wanted in just a couple hours of talking," said Wardell. "The rest of the time was the lawyers smithing out exact, agonizingly precise, verbiage. That took much longer. Usually these things claim to be amicable but it's just both sides trying to spin things. In this case, it really was amicable."

The agreement itself, in true Star Control fashion, includes a substantial amount of levity.

"We added a section in which I'll be working with Paul on beekeeping. He's going to send me some meade, I'm going to send him some honey," said Wardell.  "I don't think the lawyers were particularly enthusiastic about us incorporating some of this into the agreement. I did a tutorial video on beekeeping I was going to send over but got stung in the video, so thought better than to actually send it."

With respect to the specific terms, the classic Star Control games will return for sale on Steam and GOG as they were before, along with the alien music DLC that had been removed while the teams resolved the IP questions.

In addition, the trademark and copyright questions were put to rest with the agreement spelling out the copyrighted IP that Reiche and Ford care about along with the trademarks that Stardock cares about, with each party agreeing to respect these boundaries in their use in the future.

Star Control: Origins is available on Steam and GOG for $29.99. The expansion pack, Earth Rising, is due to be completed this Fall. Stardock and Paul Reiche plan to begin work on the new Star Control game together this Fall.

More information and details will become available in the near future as Brad, Paul and Fred will be hanging out at E3 together and meeting with the press to discuss the future of games, the fascinating yet unintuitive way the legal system works, and anything else that comes up.

Star Control: Origins is available from Stardock, GOG, or Steam for $24.99. The bundle, which includes Star Control: The Ur-Quan Masters and Star Control: Kessari Quadrant, can be purchased from Stardock, GOG, or Steam for $29.99.