Never Mind XCOM 2 – It’s Time For A Master Of Orion Reboot

Master of Orion, one of the original 4X strategy games of yonder, breaks from the DOS era and enters the 21st century. While Microprose may have died many years ago, its IP lives on. The unlikely publisher behind World of Tanks, Wargaming, picked up the franchise and is now planning to create a reboot.

For anyone that has spent a measurable percentage of their life playing the Master of Orion series, you may be as I am right about now; a sweaty, hormonal meat-sack, overcome with an all too familiar wave of suspense, dread, elation and terror.

Digging up childhood memories and selling them in some corporate wave of nostalgia driven e-commerce campaign, has been a real roller-coaster over the years. For every reboot that has wowed us, there have been two more that made us gouge out our eyes and exclaim profanities to the universe (I’m still looking at you, Syndicate). At some point though, we have to let a beloved title go, and it’s now Master of Orion‘s turn.

Some 20 years after the original release, Wargaming has called upon the talents of little know developer, NGD Studios, to deliver what can only be classified as a most daunting challenge. For those they may have never played, or heard of Master of Orion, it’s a classic 4X space strategy game about building a space-fairing empire, developing new technologies, exploring the galaxy, and crushing opponents with overwhelming military and scientific prowess… over many days of tortuous strategic planning – it was not a game for the feint of heart.

The reboot takes its inspiration from the original title, rather than Master of Orion 2, the arguably better sequel. Even the original composer for the music score has been drafted to bring a sense of authenticity to the title, along with some of the original staff. While exacting details are light at the moment, we know that there will be 13 races to choose from, over 100 solar system to dominate, and a vast tech tree. What I am really wondering is… will this be dulled down for tablets and mobiles with micro-transactions out the wazoo, or an honorable nod to the original with glorious space battles of thousands of ships, suspiciously stacked on top of each other.

Please let there be a manual with spaceships in the corners of the pages – now that was DRM done right.