Descent: FreeSpace was - for pretty much two decades - the start of the best space combat simulation ever developed. I probably spent several years of my childhood playing FreeSpace 1 and 2 and to this day there is no other game which I will get back to every few years and then play it for months on end because it is that good.

Never before have I played a game which utilizes almost all keyboard buttons, some of them even twice or thrice with button combinations. It takes days to get used to the controls and to remember all of them in the heat of battle, but after having learned them once, I never forgot them again. I can boot up any FreeSpace game after 5 years without having played it and the controls will come back to me within 5 minutes. No other game has ever managed to do that. No other game has ever managed to entertain me to that degree even although I can still remember every single mission, every enemy wave, every plot twist and all and any scripted events.

FreeSpace might not be for everyone, but every space-sim fan who doesn't believe FreeSpace to be the best space combat sim ever developed simply either hasn't played it yet or is too young to be able to fully appreciate its actual complexity and depth, as it is perfectly possible to play and even finish the game with just knowing how to thrust, turn and shoot. But there's so much more to those who aren't afraid of delving deeper into the game.

To this day, 15 years later, the FreeSpace 2 Open Source Project is still making the game better and every person even remotely interested in the FreeSpace series should check out the several hundred campaigns and total conversions available over at the Hard-Light.net FreeSpace community. It's by the way not only one of the most friendly and dedicated gaming communities I have ever seen, it also boasts probably a score of the best coders lurking around on the interwebs as well.

I can't just recommend FreeSpace, I would actually have to literally build a physical shrine to be even remotely able to convey how I feel about the entire franchise and its modding community.

Freespace 2 is coming June 6th!!!

An awesome game well ahead of its time.

For those who want Freespace 3, it's not going to happen. However you can download Freespace 2 and install Freespace Open from the Hard-Light Forums. The game now features hundreds of mods, campaigns, and user made ships as well as two separate takes on how the Freespace universe could have progressed after Freespace 2. It is also possible to play with upgraded graphics and at higher resolutions. All that for the amazing price of nothing. It is worth noting that Freespace Open is supported on OS X and Linux Operating Systems as well.

Happy fragging!

awesome game! played this back in the day. this does come with the silent threat expansion. My personal opinion is i need a joystick to fully enjoy this, but reguardless this works fine and is enjoyable on my windows 8.1 system. FREESPACE 3 PLEASE!

Window 10 users. To play you have to install nglide, http://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide. <--- THIS.
Install it. Then in the Freespace Launcher go into setup, video, detect cards. Then use 3DFX glide, and then run. It should work now. (If you are still having trouble make sure it's running in admin, or it will not save the options and wont work)

"Descent Freespace - The great War" despite being an old game (1998) is in my opinion an all-time-jewel of space sims, in its time I liked it even better than "Wing Commander", and that was by all means utterly brilliant. The story, the mission design, the enemies - Shivans and Vasudans - are just captivating. Nowadays at this price you should have a look, there are worse ways to waste your time than saving mankind;-)

This is the greatest video game ever made.

Played this one at initial release, and it is AWESOME.
Works greate on win8.1, supports gamepads)))
Hope to FreeSpace 2 + all the mods on steam aswell as FreeSpace 3)

Never got to play the expansion, so here is my chance :P

Hope you enjoy the game as much as I do!

Okay, Freespace 1 - The Great War : Check
Original Graphics and resolution : Check
X52 - Pro Supported : Check

This game might be old, but you need to know this.
Freespace, X-Wing, Wing Commander, Starlancer & Freelancer; what do those games have incommon?
Exactly, they're the best of the best when it comes down to Sci Fi Space Combat Sims.
Smooth controls, interesting missions, singleplayer & multi player.

If you're a real Sci-Fi space combat fan...get this game. It's a must have. One of the best space combat games ever made. You need this in your collection, you need to encourage Steam to accept more of those games in its store. You must commit seppuku if you deny the will of your Sci-Fi heart.

I played this game when it originaly came out in 1998 on my ole 3DFX cards. It was an amazing game then. Even today its not to bad compared to some of the new games out, It has a great story wich i think many of todays games lack. For $6 you really cant go worng. I also got Freespace 2 and played it all the way through again. Funny thing is I still own the original copies of both these games.

Amazing game from back in the day! Excellent space combat simulator with a great story and it also has one of the best intro cinematics I've seen in a game! Plus, it comes with the expansion Silent Threat.