Allegiance is a free massively multiplayer online game developed by Microsoft in 2000 and now developed and maintained by volunteers. The Operating System for this game is Windows and the genre: Space Sim/RTS Hybrid. The game combines the strategy with the player piloted space combat gameplay.
The story of this game takes place in circa 2150, shortly after the destruction of Earth by an asteroid. This cataclysm forced the remnants of humanity to the stars in search of new land and resources. Humanity quickly fractures into four main factions:
- The militaristic Iron Coalition, descendants of a United Nations-sanctioned peacekeeping force.
- GigaCorp, a transplanetary corporation bent on controlling all natural resources.
- Belters, a motley collection of traders, freedom fighters and pirates.
- and the Bios, a mysterious off shoot of genetically engineered humans with their own agenda for “stalegenes”.
Allegiance was first released for multiplayer on the Microsoft Zone under the name Allegiance Zone. This was a paid subscription service but free play was available on the Free Zone (which had fewer features). The game never achieved commercial success however, selling a mere 29000 units in the first year of release and the official servers closed in 2002.You can play it here!