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Back in 2007, a group of fans looked at FreeSpace 2, Volition’s 1999 space combat sim, and decided it would be much improved by the addition of an X-wing. Nineteen years later (long enough for the Rebellion to get from Yavin to Endor several times over, with time left for a few Ewok funerals), Fate of the Galaxy has finally rolled out of the modding hangar. It landed on 30 October, it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and it costs precisely nothing.
It’s a total conversion built on FreeSpace Open, the community engine that grew up after Volition released the FreeSpace 2 source code in 2002, so you don’t need a copy of the original game. Downloads live on ModDB or come through the Knossos mod launcher, and Windows players should clear about 3.5GB of hard drive for the privilege. The setting is the Original Trilogy, and you can fly for the Rebel Alliance, for the Empire, or for yourself as an independent, picking from more than 64 ships. Each one has a working cockpit and a customisable weapons loadout, which should settle a few pub arguments about the merits of proton torpedoes.
There’s a surprising amount of game in here for something knocked together in volunteers’ evenings. You get story campaigns of linked missions, dynamic campaigns that shift across the galaxy according to how the war goes, arcade and training scenarios, standalone missions and LAN multiplayer. There’s also a mission editor, so anyone who has spent decades convinced they could design a better trench run can now put up or shut up. Keyboard and mouse, gamepads and flight sticks are all supported, difficulty runs from casual to proper sim, and there’s VR for those who want TIE fighters screaming past their actual ears. The team also note that every asset was made by humans only. In 2007 that would have sounded faintly paranoid. In 2026 it reads like a consumer protection notice.
The stated aim is to recreate the battles of the films, Yavin and Endor in particular, rather than FreeSpace‘s more stately capital-ship slugfests. That means faster ships, quicker fights and more emphasis on not getting hit than on soaking up damage. Anyone who learned to shunt power to the shields in LucasArts’ X-Wing and TIE Fighter back in 1993 and 1994 will know the feeling being chased here. The last official attempt was Star Wars: Squadrons in 2020, and the official well has been fairly dry for cockpit fliers since.
The developers are careful to point out that the game has nothing to do with Lucasfilm or Disney and isn’t an official Star Wars product. They have even politely asked the press to stop sticking a “Star Wars:” prefix on the title. Given the House of Mouse’s history with fan projects (in 2016, Lucasfilm stopped the fan-made Galaxy in Turmoil from launching on Steam as a Star Wars game), keeping things free, non-commercial and firmly on ModDB looks like the wise move.
Here at SFcrowsnest we have a soft spot for any project that outlasts three console generations and still turns up with a manual. By the standards of the space sim, where crowdfunded epics have been known to drift through development for as long as some of their backers’ mortgages, nineteen years from first polygon to finished campaign practically counts as brisk.
Where to get it: Fate of the Galaxy is free from its ModDB downloads page for Windows (about 3.5GB), Mac and Linux. It’s also available through the Knossos FreeSpace 2 mod launcher, and the team’s own site is at fateofthegalaxy.net.
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