Typical action near
a Lagrange Point

The game is set some 100 years after the events covered in the first I-War. The New Alliance, which formed after the destruction of the old Commonwealth, has itself basically disintegrated under the greedy assault of various industrial corporations who're only too eager to plunder both the frontier stars and the usual pioneering independent types who flock to them -- in this case the sixteen or so star systems which make up the Badlands Cluster.

Edge of Chaos starts after a huge intro movie with the player taking the part of a young Cal Johnston, who is learning to pilot an interceptor under the tutelage of Clay, the mind-simulation first encountered in I-War. This initial part of the game is a beginners tutorial for the player and covers the basics of how to travel around in all that vast emptiness without succumbing to space madness (which in reality comes from trying to learn all the control keys in space-sims). Seeking to avenge his father's murder at the hands of corporate head Caleb Maas, the young Cal is eventually captured by the corrupt forces of law and order and imprisoned. The real action then begins fifteen years later when Cal and his buddies break out of the orbital penitentiary. After deciding to hit the corporations who are stealing the very life out the Badlands, Cal and his crew set up base hidden in the Effrit, a small in-sytem nebula, and proceed to liberate cargo from ships in the grand old piratical tradition. Eventually this leads to their being noticed by various concerned parties and greater things ensue.

View of a mining facility
from the opening FMV

Now for a start the 'world' building in Edge of Chaos is absolutely great and you do get the impression that there is a real universe taking place around you -- the freighters really do travel from station to station on defined routes, unloading and taking on cargo as they go; the corporations have some very heavily defended stations; alliances are kept to; and police patcomms do keep to regular patrols looking to clear the spacelanes of all the malignant anti-social types (that's you)... and all of it - planets, stars, stations, ships, explosions, the HUD, etc - is rendered in glorious technicolour by the Flux graphics engine. Carrying on from the original I-War there are many ways of viewing the ingame action ranging from typical first person view, 3rd person chasecam, 3rd person target lock, a fixed camera view, a freelook rotatable camera, and the user-controlled 'director cam' -- all of which means you can watch yourself explode (usually many times) in various amusing ways.

External shot of the
new Spider-class Tug

EoC works with a more realistic flight model than as seen in other space-sims -- and the ships also sport a distinct utilitarian look in comparison to what you see elsewhere in visual sci-fi with their collider rings and large radiator fins on the drives. This isn't just the game's own visual style, it's represented in the gameplay as well -- the ships can overheat and/or run out of power if you try doing too much at once. If you consider running out of power in the middle of combat a problem you can upgrade or change individual onboard systems to reduce their power consumption, or just heave in a larger power pack -- provided you can lay your greedy little paws on one. There's a huge variety of systems available with which to equip your ship and they can be combined in a dizzying multitude of ways; for example, if the mission requires a stealthy approach you can outfit it with cold thrusters, stealthier hullplates, signal masks and weaponry that doesn't blaze with the usual high temperatures -- all of which will result in the ship having a lower energy signature (measured by the brightness gauge on the HUD) and increase your chances of sneaking into the target zone. It's very much a horses for courses decision making process that goes way beyond merely selecting which types of missile you take with you.

Multiplayer ship
selection screen

Where in the original I-War you were restricted to the prototype dreadnaught throughout the game, Edge of Chaos has you starting out in the Spider Class Tug the crew makes their escape in; then moves on to a speedy Advanced Patcom, and eventually you really get to take it to the enemy in the new Heavy Dreadnaught -- which looks like the original dreadnaught on steroids. You can stay with one ship and continually upgrade it as explained above, but it usually does pay to take the next ship when it becomes available as it will have more space for you to mount equipment/defenses in and hardpoints for weapons systems onto, besides having a larger power source with which to put all that gear to use.

I-War was also very mission oriented and left little room for open exploration of the systems (unless you fiddled a file or two with a hex editor). In comparison Edge of Chaos has a very open ended playing style where you get presented with the 30-40 missions that advance the plot from time to time -- and if you've not been given another mission then you're just expected to wander around committing random piractical acts until the next one is put before you. You get presented with a mission when your score, measured in ships zapped and cargo pods liberated, reaches a certain level. Only some missions are necessary to advance the plot too -- you can just leave the others and not have to worry about them, although it is recommended you do them for the extra prestige and rewards you get. When back at the base you can trade the pirated items in your inventory for ship upgrades and new weapons systems, or manufacture your own weapons by recycling cargo you can't be bothered trading. Your base also contains a very handy encyclopedia in which you can read up on the various technologies and history of the game -- it's well worth taking the time to read, although there's no mention of any editors being first up against the wall when the revolution came. Besides this the base is also the only place at which you can save the game and it must be noted that occasionally this can lead to some minor frustration when you have to repeat entire missions over and over until you succeed at the final part. This has become a major point of contention on the various I-War forums as some gamers don't like this, their preference being for a completely open savegame system. It really depends on your own preferences.

Combat action from the viewpoint
of the 3rd Person chasecam