RPG Spotlight #6: MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients
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MegaTraveller 2 builds upon its predecessor in almost every way - the graphics have been significantly upgraded, the UI is a little more user-friendly, the character creation and progression options have been greatly expanded (from an already staggering number of options in The Zhodani Conspiracy), and there are now over 100 worlds to explore. With that said, however, fans of MegaTraveller 1 will feel right at home in the sequel as its basic functionality hasn't been altered to any major degree.
New to character creation is the ability to choose a gender and race (Human or Vargr), a selection of thirty new career paths (there are now 35 total), over 50 new skills to pick from (there are now 125 total), and the option to pick the character's homeworld. Additionally, skills are no longer randomly allocated when you choose a table - you can now pick skills as desired - and there are small cosmetic changes like the Social Standing attribute now being referred to as Charisma. Parties are still comprised of five characters, and, as in the first game, there are several pre-generated characters for you to pick from if you'd rather not go through the process of creating them yourself.
This time around, your party's goal is to save the planet of Rhylanor from a toxic slime that is spilling forth from the ruins of an Ancients site. The Ancients were an advanced civilization that destroyed themselves with catastrophic weaponry 300,000 years prior, so in order to determine the best way to put an end to Rhylanor's slime problem, your party will be exploring over 100 other worlds (each meticulously constructed with multiple cities, NPCs, and varied terrain) in search of artifacts left by the Ancients for clues. There are side missions available to the player on each world, as well, and once again you'll need to participate in interstellar trade if you want to properly finance your party's endeavors.
The game mechanics themselves haven't changed much in the sequel, though Quest for the Ancients is now almost entirely mouse-driven, including during combat, dialogue sessions, and trading interfaces. Unfortunately, despite the MegaTraveller series being well-received for its excellent adaptation of the Traveller ruleset, MegaTraveller 2 was never followed up by another sequel.
Interested in more RPG spotlights? Check out our previous entry for MegaTraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy, or our next entry for DND.
