The Ur-Quan Masters

The Ur-Quan Masters allows players to freely explore planets and moons.

The Ur-Quan Masters is a re-make of Star Control II, an action-adventure science fiction game, set in an open universe.[1] The game features exploration, resource-gathering, combat and diplomacy.[2] Much of the game is played from a top-down perspective,[3] with real-time combat between alien ships with different abilities.[4] Players are able to freely explore a galaxy featuring hundreds of stars, planets, and moons, which contain resources for the player to scan and retrieve in a lander vehicle.[3] The player also spends much of their time conversing with alien races in branching dialog sequences, with the goal of rallying an alliance to defeat the titular Ur-Quan.[5]

The player plays the role of the captain of a lost research mission returning to Earth.[3] The player soon discovers that Earth has been conquered by the Ur-Quan, and begins a quest to acquire the knowledge, resources, and allies that will help free humanity from slavery.[3] During the story, the Ur-Quan are distracted by a civil war with their more militant relatives the Kohr-Ah.[6] This gives the player enough time to make contact with dozens of unique alien races, influencing the outcome of the conflict.[2] After rallying humanity's former allies, the captain is able to overcome and defeat the Ur-Quan.[4]

Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford licensed their copyrighted Star Control II assets for open source under a GNU General Public License.

The Star Control series was created by Fred Ford and Paul Reiche, with Accolade publishing the games.[7] The first release in 1990 was a space strategy and action game, inspired by the 1961 space combat game Spacewar! from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[8] The 1992 sequel Star Control II abandoned the first game's strategic elements and greatly expanded the story,[9] instead wrapping their combat system into an adventure-based narrative.[8] The sequel was ported to the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer console in 1994, adding fully-voiced dialog and several other updates to the sound and graphics.[9] Star Control received awards upon release, with even more awards for Star Control II.[8] Journalists have listed Star Control among their best games of all time,[10] with Star Control II earning even more "best game" rankings through the 1990s,[11] 2000s,[12] and 2010s.[13] Star Control II is also ranked among the best games in several creative areas, including writing,[14] world design,[15] character design,[16] and music.[17]

By the early 2000s, the Star Control II copyrights reverted to Ford and Reiche, triggered by a contractual clause where the game was no longer generating royalties.[18][19] With the game no longer available in stores, Ford and Reiche wanted to keep the game in the public eye, so that they could one day make another game in the series.[18] Ford and Reiche still owned the rights to Star Control I and II, but they could not successfully purchase the Star Control trademark from publisher Accolade, leading them to consider a new title for a potential follow-up.[20] This led them to remake Star Control II as The Ur-Quan Masters.[21] Their independent studio Toys for Bob hired Chris Nelson as their first summer intern, and his enthusiasm for open source software led him to work with Fred Ford to port the game to modern operating systems.[18] Ford recalled that "we haven't made a sequel yet, so we thought the least we could do is release the source code and let the fans revive it on modern computers."[22]

The open source project officially launched in 2002, when Ford and Reiche licensed the source code from the 3DO version of Star Control II as open source under the GNU General Public License.[23] Ford and Reiche own all the copyrighted content in the first two Star Control games,[24] and granted the fan-operated project a free, perpetual license to the Star Control II content and the Ur-Quan Masters trademark.[25] The first version of The Ur-Quan Masters was inefficient by Ford and Reiche's standards, but Nelson knew skilled contacts in the open source community who could keep progressing with the project.[18] The fan community continued the project with further support, enhancements, and modifications.[9] Ford and Reiche personally credit the open source Ur-Quan Masters for making their creation available from 2001 to 2011, before Star Control became available for sale digitally through GOG.com.[18] In an interview with O'Reilly Media, the fans-turned-developers stated that a for-profit company would not be able to justify the port and remake, and that "without the open source philosophy, The Ur-Quan Masters would never have existed."[23]

The HD modification has earned a reputation of its own.

The Ur-Quan Masters has an active fanbase, maintaining both the open source project and an extensive wiki.[22] The most essential modifications extended the original code to operate on newer operating systems, in order to resolve compatibility issues that arose from the transition away from the original DOS platform.[9] Fans have since modified and extended the project several times. Reiche has responded that "our policy has been to let people do whatever they want, as long as they don't turn our characters into mass murderers or make money with it. If you're making money with our stuff, we'd like a pizza."[22]

The Ur-Quan Masters also introduced features from the 3DO version that were previously unavailable on other platforms, including improved scaling in combat, improved planetary graphics, and full voice acting.[9] The extensions further added mod support and online multiplayer combat, neither of which were supported in the classic games.[4] The most notable fan modification is the high-definition version of the game, The Ur-Quan Masters HD, released in 2013.[26] The HD version was created by re-painting every frame of animation by hand.[27]

Since its 2002 release, The Ur-Quan Masters has been downloaded nearly two million times.[28] Soon after its debut, the game was featured in PC PowerPlay in its compilation of free games, celebrating it as a "timeless classic" from the "golden age of gaming".[29] Finnish magazine Pelit reviewed The Ur-Quan Masters in 2004, rating it two stars for its timeless appeal, as well as new features and remixed music.[30] Retro Gamer featured The Ur-Quan Masters on the cover of their June 2005 edition. They further praised Ford and Reiche for making such a quality game available as an open source project, stating that "this small Californian group has seen fit to grace the gaming world with one of its finest achievements, and at no cost."[8] In a 2011 feature about open source games, Michael Blake of IGN celebrated The Ur-Quan Masters as one of the greatest games, and a "pitch-perfect port to modern operating systems." He lauded the game experience, describing how "UQM completely hooked me, with the genius single-player storyline and the hectic multiplayer of Super Melee mode both good enough to warrant the download on their own".[2]

The Ur-Quan Masters has been included on several best games lists since its release. In 2008, PC Gamer named The Ur-Quan Masters as one of the best free games.[31] Game Developer Magazine featured the game in their 2010 list of open source space games, praising its scale and charm, as well as its new features.[32] The game was also listed in Maximum PC's 2015 "best free games" feature.[33] Tom's Guide included The Ur-Quan Masters in their list of top classic games re-released for free, praising its staying power as "few games today feature the same mix of narrative depth, sandbox exploration and enjoyable space combat that have won the game a cult following to this day."[34] In 2019, PCGamesN ranked The Ur-Quan Masters as one of the top 15 space games ever made, celebrating its characters, dialog and sense of discovery. They additionally praised it as "one of the best free PC games you'll ever find".[3]

• Official The Ur-Quan Masters website
• Official The Ur-Quan Masters wiki - The Ultronomicon