In every city, every planet, every galaxy, there is a hope - spoken only in whispers.  It is the hope of revolution, and in the Scorpius system, it is finally coming true.

The Government controls almost everything. They control wages. They control prices. They control entertainment. They control information. They have transformed an idealistic colonization project into a systemwide serfdom. Tens of billions of sentients live in Scorpius with no hope of advancement, no hope of escape.

In Scorpius Freighter, you are the leader of a crew on a cargo ship.  While on the surface your crew appears to be law-abiding citizens who fulfill legal contracts, secretly you are undermining the government through smuggling restricted medicines, aiding informants and delivering classified information.

In this "push everyone's luck" game, players can choose between seven factions to operate their freighter.  Each faction comes with four unique crew members, each with their own set of abilities which can help you to achieve your anti-establishment goals.

Players move any of three Government ships in planetary orbit to choose their actions. These can include delivering and storing cargo and making lucrative deals which benefit you both morally and financially. You can also upgrade and customize your ship, building a faster, better craft from which to launch your base of revolutionary operations.

The game is over when the Government forces its embargo (any of the three ships completes a certain number of orbits depending on player count) and the crew with the highest reputation at the end of the game is declared the winner. If I have one criticism, it is probably that I would have liked to see the crew facilitate a revolution in the end game - but then again, I always was a rebel.

Narratively, it is difficult to see Scorpius Freighter as more than a Firefly rehash, but there are a lot of games who also hold that title - Core Space comes to mind, for example.  It's an essential part of the genre at this point and, while it would be nice to see greater narrative development, it's a small criticism of an otherwise interesting game.

Scorpius Freighter will be previewing at Essen Spiel later this year but, in the meantime, you can check out the rulebook on Alderac's website.

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