Star Control II devs unite for a 'passion project' sequel

Toys for Bob cofounders Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III announced this week that they've begun working on a sequel to the 1992 space adventure game Star Control II called Ghosts of the Precursors.

This is a big deal because the pair were the original designers of Star Control and Star Control II, before publisher Accolade decided to bring in a different studio (the now-defunct Legend Entertainment) to make Star Control 3.

Since then Toys for Bob has had nothing to do with the series, and it appears that may hold true for this new game as well -- Reiche and Ford have established a new website and Twitter account that bears no Toys for Bob branding, and their announcement makes it clear that "this is a passion project for us and we have committed to dedicating some of our own time to creating a true sequel."

The rights to Star Control eventually passed from Accolade to Atari and then to Stardock, which in 2013 confirmed plans to attempt a Star Control reboot.

Stardock chief Brad Wardell took to Twitter today to confirm that Stardock is not involved with this new Star Control game, but did work with Ford and Reiche ("we've been talking for four years") to ensure both sides were happy. As a result, Stardock is cool with Ghosts of the Precursors using the aliens that appear in Star Control II.

For more insight into where Star Control came from and why it's become a bit of a classic game, have a look back at this classic postmortem of the game that Reiche, Ford, and writer/developer Rob Dubbin presented at GDC 2015.