If Stephen Robertson (who I'm assuming is Ravenger) was right that i-war sold 300k units back in the day I have to ask a question:

If the people from Particle Systems were able to drop their day jobs, get the bang back together and start work on a reboot of I-War (as lets be honest it's a fantastic game but who doesn't want to see Dreadnought in 1080P super high poly with modern and more flexible input options available?) roughly how many £30 - £40 donations would it take on a Kickstarter to make it happen?

I accept the argument that the market isn't there, but the same was said about 4X games and a quick glance at Steam shows 4 of them either due for release soon or already released. On the space game front I see people wish that Lucasarts would release a newer version of TIE Fighter (or XvT), people are looking forward to the new instalment of the X franchise and well... they're the same people who'd buy I-War (I've even heard people complain about the lack of Z-axis flight controls in their space sims).

It just seems that in these days of 40 million Steam accounts, the resurgence of PC gaming as the current console generation continues to age with no sign of updates AND Kickstarter's generating millions of dollars for a point n' click adventure (no mention of what the story would be even) that a modernised I-War could actually do quite well for itself.

So yeah, roughly how much would it realistically take to reboot the franchise (or remake it as new if Atari own the rights and don't want to play) and is it even remotely feasible if we get the proverbial month of Sundays?

You want a remake of the first I-War?
With 30-40 pound donations? Count me out.

I-War 3 however...maybe set in the same time as the first game, but with freeroam and piracy.

Well, I'm making my first steps in Independence War 2, and I must say that it's a bit too free-roam for me. I like the mission approach from I-War and Defiance a lot better, so a remake or a prequel of I-War that retains the original game's structure (also think of the save points in Defiance), but without the random script screw-ups would be my cup of tea.

And hell, even Independence War 2's approach wit free-roam and piracy could have been exploited better if the player was guided well during the first few hours of gameplay.

Anyway, I had already wondered why there are no initiatives to bring games like Nexus or I-War back to life. The devs could even rename the game if they don't get the rights to use that name.

I'd love to have the chance to work on a modern I-War game. I can't say if that'd be the case for the other original team members though.

As far as I know Michael Powell - joint Director of Particle Systems - still owns the IP rights.

"who doesn't want to see Dreadnought in 1080P"

I recently re-installed the retail version of I-War 2 and was pleased to see that it runs in modern resolutions. I currently have it set to 1920x1200 and still looks pretty good, despite its age, although the main menu with the rotating heads is glitched. Fantastic game.

Was one of the developers from Bradford? There's a ship named Odsal Top that crops up from time to time.

I too would love to see a new Independence War game. But for those of you who want more, have any of you tried the X- series from Egosoft? Building, flying and creating your own ships and fleets from fighters to carriers to dreadnoughts... AND then building and managing your own space stations as well should give you plenty to tide you over for now...

From X-Beyond to the latest X3 Albion Prelude to the upcoming new X - series game, it should give any of you something to do until or if a new I-war ever comes out.

XvT and X-series are set in a different galaxy, don't know about Freespace though. They don't claim to be realistic anyway and I don't personally think that is always necessary (even I-War isn't 100% realistic).