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Stardock announces Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, 'free to play' dev tools for Impulse SDK
Stardock announced a new Sins of a Solar Empire expansion today, subtitled Rebellion. In a separate press release, the company revealed a major update to its game development platform, Impulse Reactor, which will allow developers to implement "free to play" gaming through the Impulse digital distribution network. The Impulse Reactor update is expected to go live this month and will add features to the SDK enabling "free to play" elements for games running on the Impulse platform. If you're one of the millions of players that has dropped coin on Riot Games' League of Legends or Turbine's DDO or Lord of the Rings Online, you've probably got a good idea of the potential here. As for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, it's described as a "full-fledged expansion" of the 4X RTS space series -- not a sequel. Brian Clair, director of publishing for Stardock, told us that, like the original, Rebellion will not feature a single-player campaign, but will build upon the gameplay introduced in the original Sins and its micro-expansions. Given the timing of the Rebellion announcement alongside news of the upcoming "free to play" options added to Impulse Reactor, we asked if this next Sins would be a free-to-play title. "Definitely not," Clair said, though pricing has not been set. Rebellion will support achievements, multiplayer leagues and other features. Speaking to concerns voiced by players that don't have the hours to set aside for a standstard multiplayer match in Sins, Clair said, "We're going to continue looking at ways to address that for folks who want to get a game in under an hour." Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is expected to be released in late 2011; however a Stardock representative told us the company is taking the "done when it's done" approach to development.
