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After five years in development, Free Stars: Children of Infinity—the official sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters by the old game’s original creators—has released a free public demo. It’s a “combat demo” in the style of UQM’s melee mode, where players can assemble a fleet from the game’s roster of nearly 40 ships, then match those ships up in head-to-head arcade SpaceWar-style action. The demo can be found on Steam and GOG, and it’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. (Console versions are coming, but they’re not yet out.) I have to present this news with a big disclaimer, though, because I’ve been part of the Children of Infinity writing team since 2021, working as a volunteer with the Pistol Shrimp Games crew and contributing NPC dialogue and some story bits. As a huge fan of the original games, it’s been a dream opportunity. (Because I’ve been volunteering my time, I’m not financially involved and receive no compensation if you download the demo or, when it’s eventually released, buy the full game.) What’s in the demo Children of Infinity is a space adventure RPG, just like The Ur-Quan Masters (and its direct spiritual predecessors, Starflight and Starflight 2). What’s been released today is just one part of the game—the arcade-style “melee” portion, which lets players jump into one-versus-one combat against another player or against a computer-controlled opponent. Each of the ships you can pick has its own maneuvering characteristics, weapons, and special abilities. All of the old familiar ships from The Ur-Quan Masters are present (with one exception: the Slylandro probe didn’t make it), and they’re joined by a pile of new faces from the new game, along with some melee-only ships designed by Kickstarter backers. All together, there are 38 different ships that you can smash together in the combat sandbox.
document fetched 2026-09-09 13:52 · canonical https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/09/the-official-sequel-to-the-ur-quan-masters-releases-its-free-demo-today