The long-awaited sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters hits its crowdfunding target in less than four hours, and they're not kidding about that $4.4 million stretch goal

After a long, rocky road, the sequel to Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters is finally taking flight. A Kickstarter campaign to support the development of Free Stars: Children of Infinity got underway earlier this week, and it's already a major success, having tripled its $100,000 goal in just three days.

For those who haven't been following the action, Free Stars: Children of Infinity was originally entitled Ghosts of the Precursors, but that ran into grief when Stardock filed a trademark lawsuit against the project. Stardock claimed it had acquired the rights to the Star Control series from Atari in 2013, and while Ghosts of the Precursors was positioned as a sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters, that game was in fact an open-source remake of Star Control 2, which was developed by Toys for Bob and released in 1992.

The whole thing eventually came to an amicable settlement that, among other things, granted Pistol Shrimp Games—the studio founded in 2021 by Toys for Bob co-founders Paul Reiche and Fred Ford, along with Dan Gerstein and Ken Ford—the right to make new Ur-Quan Masters games. And more than 20 years after the release of The Ur-Quan Masters, there's still a lot of interest in more: The Children of Infinity blew past its initial goal in less than four hours.

«We really weren’t sure what to expect, but we were surprised and quite flattered to see so many people turn out with so much enthusiasm!» Gerstein told PC Gamer. «One of the best feelings as a creator is getting to actually put your work out in the world and get feedback on it. After so many years on our journey to this point, we are simply thrilled to have the opportunity to bring so much happiness to people and create something we love that we can share with the gaming community.»

The gameplay in the Children of Infinity Kickstarter video will be almost immediately familiar to fans of The Ur-Quan Masters, and Gerstein said there will be «lots of little touches, callbacks, and reminders» of that game. 

But it's