Master of Orion Collector's Edition

Master of Orion Comes February 26 Starring Big Names

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Published: February 18, 2016 9:14 AM

Master of Orion is a series that is dear to many people for its landmark success with the first two titles in the series in the 4x genre. Revered still and played decades after launch, it was perhaps inevitable that someone would resurrect this franchise in this era of relaunches. WG Labs (part of Wargaming.net) is the one behind this reboot that has been slowly teasing information about the series' reboot over the last year and we finally have some more hard info on when the game will be joining us and who will be whispering in our ears as it does so.

Planning to take advantage of the new Early Access and Games in Development systems, Master of Orion will be coming out on February 26 on PC and according to information they've previously shared will spend at least 3 months in Early Access with a 3 phase plan to release new features and races. At launch they will have only 6 races enabled, as well as having some of the victory conditions and options disabled althought they state the core game play will be there to allow a full, if slightly limited, play-through. 

You'll likely have most of the voice actors in as well given the reveal today and showing them doing studio work. Wargaming.net appears to have spared basically no expense on getting big name and talented people here with experience in all sorts of things but especially Science Fiction. Star Trek stars Michael Dorn (Worf) will be the narrator, Jean De Lancie (Q) being Human Emperor, and Dwight Shultz (Barkley) as the GNN Anchor come over from that rich series. Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) will be the Alkari Emperor, Alan Tudyk (Wash on FireFly) will be the Psilon Advisor and plenty of other big names make an appearance as shown in the trailer and in the list below:

·        Troy Baker: Klackon Advisor, Psilon Emperor
·        J.B. Blanc: Bulrathi Advisor, Meklar Advisor, Meklar Emperor
·        Kat Cressida: Mrrshan Empress
·        John de Lancie: Human Emperor
·        Michael Dorn: Narrator
·        Robert Englund: Terran Emperor
·        Nika Futterman: Darlok Advisor, Mrrshan Advisor
·        Jean Gilpin: Klackon Emperor
·        Mark Hamill: Alkari Emperor
·        John Kassir: Alkari Advisor
·        Misty Lee:, Silicoid Advisor
·        Sumalee Montano: Terran Advisor
·        Nolan North: Darlok Emperor, Sakkra Emperor
·        Dwight Schultz: GNN Anchor
·        Roger Craig Smith: Sakkra Advisor
·        Fred Tatasciore: Bulrathi Emperor, Silicoid Emperor
·        Alan Tudyk: Psilon Advisor
·        Kari Wahlgren: Human Advisor, GNN Anchor

For those looking at getting into the Early Access, only the Collector's Edition will be available - with standard edition pricing yet to be revealed and the version will only come out at launch. The Collector's Edition will run you $49.99 and they have no plans to increase the cost after the early access period. For ordering it you get the game of course, Early Access, the first 3 Master of Orion titles, retro art pixel ship skins, digital art book, a modernized orchestral soundtrack by the original composer of the Master of Orion series, and a race exclusive to the collector's edition: The Terran Khanate. 

As for running the game, the specs are up on the Steam page if you want to look there but the game is Directx 9 compatible and will run on systems back to Windows 7 and plans to have mac and Linux support. it won't quite run on a toaster but it's not a very demanding game.

Oh and that trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhzlgohX2SM


Quick Take

So, as a Master of Orion fan and a big science fiction fan that voice acting list was like a dream list basically. I'm going to NEVER be playing humans probably given that would mean shutting up John de Lancie and who would want to do that? I am a bit concerned with this 'collector's edition exclusive race' thing though.

What do you think of the Master of Orion reboot? Do you think they spent too much on voice acting? Any thoughts on the collector's edition? Share your thoughts in the comments below!


Don Parsons
| Senior Writer

A longtime lover of speculative fiction, in almost all its forms, Don joined TechRaptor in 2014 on a whim sending in an application as he was looking for… More about Don