I recall playing freelancer in 2016, which back then was 16 years after the release of the game — the graphics and controls already felt pretty dated back then, yet I was still blown away by the game and the atmosphere it managed to create. The distinct factions, the music, amazing game.<p>Space sims are of course about space flight, but they are also about showing utopian and dystopian societies and how people made a home in space. How specific architecture looks like, what culture developed (e.g. bars and trucker like culture) and so on. This is the part that interests me more than most other things.<p>I wonder how I would think about it now, in 2023.