Franchise Games We’d Like to See – Firefly

fireflylogoI’ll be 100% honest with you.  I’m totally watching Firefly right now, as I write this article.  Such a rich universe, interesting characters and amazing balance between action and comedy, the short-lived cult hit TV series Firefly and it’s cinematic companion Serenity completely blew me away when I first encountered them.  It never occurred to me whether or not they would make a good video game until just now, as I sat down to write my latest blog.  In that spirit, here is the first in (hopefully) a series of articles I like to call “Franchise Games We’d Like to See”.

**disclaimer – I realize that one of these articles may be posted after an announcement of an actual game coming out in the future.  In that case, I don’t care.

Just in case you thought it gets better than this... it doesn't

Just in case you thought it gets better than this... it doesn't.

Joss Whedon’s space drama is potentially the most viable for a video game, perhaps even more so than proven franchises such as Star Wars.  Humankind has colonized the galaxy from Earth, and since degenerated into a Wild West on a new frontier.  Before we left Earth, our society became more homogenized – basically, the USA and China became the w0rld’s two major superpowers and after (maybe) hundreds of years, American (not English, American) and Mandarin are the two prominent languages; as a matter of fact, pretty much everyone is bilingual, although Mandarin is usually reserved for curses.  So when we colonized the galaxy, we terraformed the planets and settled in.  Except the outer planets, with inferior terraforming and technology, wanted to remain independent colonies from the central planets, who had formed the Alliance.  A civil war ensues, and the Independents lose.  But the outer systems remain relatively lawless except under the heavy hand of the Alliance military.  So we have our good guys, our bad guys, and – wait.  There’s more bad guys.  The Reavers – psychotic space cannibals who are like futuristic Vikings on PCP.  Bonus.  So I guess we have room for more than one faction, with a common enemy.  That’s good cake.

Just in case you thought it gets better than this... it doesn't.

She may not look like much kid, but she's got it where it counts.

So what I’d like to examine second is what kind of game Firefly would translate best into.  Some franchises lend themselves better to first person shooters, others to 3rd person adventure games and some even to racing systems.  I think Firefly would be best approached from the perspective of Mass Effect or a similar RPG.  A crew of space pirates, sharing the spoils of war and crime as they fly throughout space under the radar of the Alliance (think Galactic Empire Lite).  As a matter of fact, I think that the Mass Effect engine would require little to no modification to accommodate the Firefly universe.  That Firefly doesn’t have as many straight-up combat and war situations as Mass Effect doesn’t really matter – the game would have to be relatively combat heavy – got to keep it interesting, right?  The only other alternative I can really think of would be an MMORPG, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s keep this on a console level.

The Wild West in space. Without Will Smith. It's not all bad.

The Wild West in space. Without Will Smith. It's not all bad.

So if you’re going to play, what do you want to play as? A backwater smuggler (cough-Han Solo-cough), or a hardened veteran hiring his gun out to a team of brigands? Maybe an ace pilot, an engineer, or simply a rogue trying to make his way in the world (uh, galaxy)?  This franchise could offer a wide variety of characters to play, and an immersive and rich universe to play them in.  So hopefully, with class and without losing any dignity…

Please, please, please make a Firefly game!

Cheers.






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