Freedom Force sequel details emerge

Ah yes, Freedom Force. "For freedom!" and all that. We liked the curious blend of superbly realised comic book superheroes and action-packed strategy RPG gameplay rather a lot, and should Irrational go on to develop a sequel then we'd be particularly interested to know what it's all about. Well gosh; as luck would have it GameSpot has conducted a Q&A session with Irrational Games' Jonathan Chey on that very subject!

Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich will continue a few years after the original game, bringing all of the characters back to face a new supervillain called Blitzkrieg. To do this the heroes have to actually travel back in time to World War II and do battle with the Reich and its legion of evildoers.

Irrational has promised that many areas of the game that worked both well and not so well will all be getting some attention. The multiplayer portion of the game will be getting a total overhaul, with new game modes, matchmaking and scoring components being the obvious improvements, with more details yet to surface. The hero editor will also be adjusted to make hero and super power creation far easier than before. The game will also look better and think better, with dramatically enhanced graphics, and AI allowing your fellow heroes to act on their own initiative when not under your direct influence.

Probably our favourite aspect of the original was the enormous levels of interactivity the characters had with the scenery, with city landscapes getting torn apart in the midst of all the action. Irrational has promised to take this notch further, with more detailed building destruction sequences and greater levels of interactivity.

Despite the fact that there's still a huge amount we don't know about Freedom Force 2, it sounds as if Irrational knows exactly what the enormous community spawned by the original wants from a sequel. We're off to dig our red tights out of the bottom of the cupboard in preparation for the game's 2004 release.