Fitting all of the new information about the continuation of the vanilla freelancer story into one singular post would go beyond the scope of this blog, but I will attempt to provide a concise overview regardless.
Obviously our focus is on building upon the story elements already provided by the story of the base game. Our philosophy while creating info cards describing the new structures, as well as all of the reworked info cards of existing ones is to expand on them and make it feel like a natural progression – as if life went on in the 15 years following the end of the Freelancer story.
A decision we made early on, was to have a direction set for the story and give the players the chance to participate in it. We have accomplished that by creating colorful and intriguing characters as faction leaders, that will evolve alongside the constant new developments of the story and help progress it. They will act as an indicator for players in which direction a faction moves.
We still want roleplay to be a major part of the mod. For this reason the Afterlife forum characters are tied to the game. We are confident that this decision will push players towards acting more consciously of how they play, and help them keep in mind that their behavior could very well affect currently ongoing roleplay on the forums.
We also tried to provide a lot more background to all of the factions. There was an abundance of generic pirates, faceless corporations and stereotypical governments in the vanilla game. While we continued the trend of noticeable stereotypes in some cases, we made efforts to continue the trend of pushing previously uninteresting factions in a direction that was hinted at in vanilla Freelancer, that would further the story of Aftermath in general, or that just made sense. Please keep in mind that this is only one potential interpretation, of a continuation, of the vanilla story. We are always open to suggestions and if you discovered a facet of the story that you feel is overlooked or under-represented in the direction we're currently taking, we would be happy to hear your feedback on the Aftermath Discord server for in the comments below.
That being said, here are some notable changes:
- The Bundschuh is now a legal political party in the Rheinland Reichstag. In fact the previous Rheinland Chancellor was a Bundschuh candidate.
- Through clever management and constant exponential growth the GMG has grown to become the first "mega corp" of the Sirius Sector. Their massive stations house generations of workers and their political influence among the houses grows steadily.
- The KNF have started to rebuild their military and act against unlawful threats. Meanwhile the Blood Dragons refuse to give up the positions they took during the power vacuum left by recent events.
- The Mollies are now more than just disgruntled miners. The Molly Sovereignty Movement, as it is officially referred to now, aims to establish a strong opposition to the current Bretonian Government. Through clever propaganda of the current political leadership, the Public still sees them as political extremists, attempting to destabilize their independent government. The Mollys strengthened their bond to the Rogues to further common goals more effectively.
- ALG bought Kruger Minerals. That acquisition formed the new ALAK AG. A giant conglomerate rivalling the likes of Dauman Heavy Construction.
- BMM has always been quite cruel when it comes to treating their employees. This poor handling of their employees has reached a new peak and civil unrest against their ruthlessness is reaching its boiling point.
- A new faction emerged in Rheinland - The Sons of Ymir. They are a group of ex-military personnel from the Rheinland-Kusari war. Some say they are a regular PMC, others believe they have political interests.
- Planetform now has a considerable amount of work on their hands. The issue is that recent media reports about the CEO are less than flattering. Because of the lack of progress and their ridiculously optimistic terraforming project schedules, there are rumors about the head of the company being a known scam artist. The fact that nobody has seen him in weeks doesn't help his case.
