StarDrive: A 4x "action strategy" game

It's certainly undeniable that the space 4x genre has been a mixed bag this last year: Endless Space and Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion have both received a generally favorable response; in contrast, the release of Sword of the Stars 2 and now Legends of Pegasus have been, by virtually all accounts, failures of epic proportions. But at least for most 4x gamers, there's been some good with the bad.

For me personally, though, it's been almost entirely a down year thus far: I never cared for the original Sins or SotS (not that they're bad games, they're just not my cup of tea), and so had little interest in their respective sequels. Endless Space initially looked pretty sweet, but the combat model and apparent lack of immersion has turned me off to the game. LoP was one of the few 4x titles coming out this year that I was still looking forward to, but its disastrous launch has dampened my enthusiasm for it, to put it mildly.

...And yet, I have not given up all hope. For there is at least one more PC space strategy game being released this year, one that ~~could reclaim the throne of Gondor~~ still holds some promise: StarDrive. I don't know if it's hit any mainstream game sites yet, but here are a few previews, interviews, and other articles: (link, link, link, link).

I originally stumbled onto StarDrive when someone on another forum linked to the game's (ultimately successful) Kickstarter project, to which I ended up making a small contribution (enough to warrant me a copy of the game when it's released). It started out as a project being worked on by Zero Sum Games, a one-man dev team by the name of Daniel DiCicco -- a lawyer, amusingly enough (he was sick of doing divorces and other nasty legal work) -- and (partially thanks to the Kickstarter project) has since grown to include a few other folks helping him out, mostly with artwork and some extra coding.

Since then, the game has landed Iceberg Interactive as its publisher, who was also the European publisher for Armada 2526 (and its Supernova expansion). Probably pretty meaningless overall, but I take it as a positive omen.

In any case, Dan has just finished wrapping up (what's appeared to be) a thorough and open alpha-testing, and moving onto the beta. And by "beta", he means bug-squashing and polishing only; the game is "locked in" at this point, with no more content or features to be added before release. He's made it clear he's determined to avoid a disaster similar to that of SotS2's launch (and now LoP's) at all costs; as a fellow fan of 4x games, I think he's been as disappointed with those two as the rest of us.

Barring unforeseen/unlikely circumstances, StarDrive will be released sometime in Q4 2012 (depending on final testing & QA). In addition, indications are that the game should be available for pre-order in the near future, and that (unlike certain other 4x titles that were released in a nigh-unplayable state) doing so will grant you access to the beta. For those who wish to wait, however -- and after what's transpired these last ten months, who could blame you? -- I'll be posting my impressions and hopefully a full review as soon I can get my grubby hands on it. ~D