Freespace the Forgotten Classic [Part 3]- The Shivans

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Join me as I analyze one of the finest introductions in games.

The Shivans' real introduction flies in the face of a lot of conventional wisdom regarding how players meet their foes. Instead of some massive cutscene or scripted even, they're just dropped in your mission area and left to wreak havoc. I know technically they were introduced in the opening but they're barely shown and while they make an impact, until the 5th mission, Freespace does as much as it can to make you forget about that cutscene.

Also by the way they're introduced, the Shivans don't fit into the established rules of Freespace up to this point. They can't be targeted and more importantly they have shields. This was why I harped on about it. You're introduced to shields through the gameplay, not some piece of exposition. You get to experience the world shattering nature of the technology as it makes killing even a single Shivan ship an achievement unto itself.

The following 2 missions mainly focus on pacing out the experience after such a massive event and Paving the Way is at its heart about forcing you to think about what happened in the previous mission. The final mission I talk about does more to set up a majority of the game's big emotional beats than you might expect and tells you a hell of a lot about the Shivans without actually telling you anything about their history and push the Lovecraftian influence even more.

All this is why the Shivans continue to be one of the finest antagonists and examples of cosmic horror and Lovecraftian monsters in games. It doesn't matter how many you kill. It doesn't matter how many you save. They are coming.

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Missions:
Out of the Dark, Into the Night
Paving the Way
Pandora's Box

*Some footage from A Failure to Communicate

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Видео Freespace the Forgotten Classic [Part 3]- The Shivans канала Fire;steel