Discovery Freelancer 5.0 is out, and if you haven't checked in on the project in a while, the scale of what it has become is worth a moment of appreciation.
Quick background for newer readers: Discovery Freelancer is a multiplayer mod for Freelancer that has been in continuous development since 2003. It is not a traditional mod — it is effectively its own game. At 5.0, it includes over 97 additional star systems beyond the vanilla game, 255-plus ships across new and expanded factions, a player-driven narrative where political events are shaped by the community, faction roleplay systems, and a continuously updated content pipeline that has not stopped in twenty years. It runs on a live server that you connect to online. Thousands of registered accounts.
One thing to be clear about: Discovery removes the vanilla single-player campaign. If you want to play Freelancer's story as Digital Anvil shipped it, Discovery is not the vehicle for that — you want vanilla with HD Edition. Discovery is for players who want a living online universe built on Freelancer's foundation but substantially expanded beyond it. It's a different product.
Version 5.0 represents a major version milestone. Based on community documentation, this release brought significant overhauls to Discovery's faction and reputation systems, changes to economy balancing, new content in the expanded systems, and updates to the lore that drives the player-facing political narrative. The development team has been working on the 5.0 update for a significant period, and it shows in scope.
The active playerbase fluctuates — as with any MMO, peak hours matter more than raw account numbers. The community Discord and the official forums at discoverygc.com are the best way to get a current read on server activity before committing to the install.
For the detailed mod experience and lore coverage from vanilla's perspective, the Lore Deep Dive articles on this site cover the base game canon. Discovery's lore is its own expanded universe, and the two should be kept distinct.