我认为《自由力量》最令人欣慰的一点便是模组社区，因为它太疯狂了！我是一直想做些我们从未做过的大事。这是我们之前未曾遇过的，它就这么变成了个独立的存在，粉丝们则为其制作了千千万万又千千万万个角色。

I think one of the most gratifying things about Freedom Force was the mod community, because it was insane! I always wanted to do something that was bigger than we could track. We never had that before, and it just got to become this thing that stood on its own. People made thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of characters!

Ken Levine
《自由力量》作者

Ken Levine,
Freedom Force's writer

游戏内有着一套直观的工具用于创造自定义英雄，可供主要战役、线上模式或是游戏的挑战任务中使用。游戏还提供了一个功能强大的编辑工具，这引起了漫画类游戏粉丝的内容创作热潮。数百名漫威和 DC 超级英雄被赋予了生命，一些雄心勃勃的项目开始出现在众多粉丝网站上，包括自制动画、原创地图、完全改版以及全新战役。

这款游戏的未来看似得到了保障，但就像这个行业内经常会发生的那样，知识产权在是归属发行商还是开发者上出现了问题，续作的发行也因此延期。

与此同时《英雄之城（City of Heroes）》^[6] 也发售了，该游戏囊括了《自由力量》所开创的所有内容，并窃取了它的一部分荣誉。

Included with the game was an intuitive tool for creating custom superheroes that could be used in the main campaign, taken online or used in the game's challenge maps. The game was also released with a suite of robust modding tools, leading to a massive frenzy of content creation by the dedicated fans of the comic book genre. Hundreds of Marvel and DC superheroes were brought to life, and ambitious projects began to appear on numerous fan-sites, featuring custom animations, original maps, complete modifications and entirely new campaigns.

The future seemed assured for the franchise, however, as so often happens in this industry, legal complications arose as to who owned the rights of the intellectual property, the publishers or the developers, and there was a delay with the release of the sequel.

In the meantime, City of Heroes was released, a game covering much of the ground Freedom Force had trail-blazed and stealing some of its glory.

粉丝们不仅制作了数千种自定义英雄皮肤，还制作了基于《正义联盟（Justice League）》《自杀小队（Suicide Squad）》和其他 IP 改编的全新战役模组。如果你想找它们的资源，Alex's Freedom Fortress 是一个不错的网站。

Fans not only created thousands of custom hero skins, but also huge mods with new campaigns based on the Justice League, Suicide Squad and the other IPs. A good resource for them is Alex's Freedom Fortress.

2005 年法律纠纷最终得到了解决，《自由力量对战第三帝国（Freedom Force vs.the Third Reich）》也得以公布。为了向黄金时期漫画^[7] 致敬，本作以穿越情节作为卖点，这次前作的英雄必须要对抗来自轴心国的恶棍们。该作是 Irrational 自己发行的，但不幸的是销量并不好，据说只卖出了 4 万份。

为什么销量如此令人失望呢？虽然这款游戏在许多方面都比原版有所改进，但却缺失了不少难度和一些吸引人的要素。地图变得不再那么有趣，任务也不再那么复杂，战斗部分的比重更大了，而英雄却不再重要了。

虽然第二作的结尾留了个有趣的悬念，并且为第三作更为复杂的青铜（或许是铁器）时期^[8] 背景创作了概念图，但时至今日我们仍热切等待着爱国者城中那些伟大英雄的归来。

In 2005, the legal disputes were finally settled and Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich was released. A homage to the Golden Age of comics books, it featured a time-travelling plot where the heroes of the first game had to face the villains of the Axis powers. The game was self-published by Irrational themselves, but unfortunately failed to sell well, reputedly moving only about 40,000 copies.

Who can say why sales were so disappointing? The game improved on many aspects of the original, but a lot of the difficulty and little charming touches were lost. Maps became less interesting and objectives not so punishing or complicated, while combat played a much larger role and heroics less of one.

While the second game ended on an intriguing cliffhanger and concept art was made for a possible third game set in a more complex Bronze or Iron Age setting, to this day we still eagerly await the return of Patriot City's mightiest heroes.

__________

⁶ 译者注：《英雄之城（City of Heroes）》，由 Cryptic 工作室开发，NCsoft 公司于2004发行的主打多人线上的超级英雄题材 RPG。
⁷ 译者注：漫画的黄金时期（Golden Age of Comic Books）是美国漫画历史中的一个时段，一般认为此一时期是由 1930 年代开始直到 1950 年代中期为止，在这段时间中漫画书开始受到极大的欢迎，超级英雄的题材典型在此时期被创造与定义出;又因为第二次世界大战，因此该时期漫画的反派主要以轴心国（尤其是德国纳粹党）为主。随着二十世纪五十年代“麦卡锡主义”的盛行为标志，黄金时代就此结束。
⁸ 译者注：漫画的青铜时期（Bronze Age of Comic Books），七十年代中后期到八十年代初期，受六十年代“嬉皮士文化”和“越战”的影响，该时期超级英雄漫画开始更多的关注政治问题与处理社会问题。随着如惩罚者、金刚狼、恶灵骑士的反英雄陆续登场，反英雄这种类型的角色开始日渐风行。