Hard Nova (1990): Sentinel Worlds' Overlooked Mercenary Follow-Up
Status unclearYear: 1990 · Developer/Publisher: Electronic Arts · Designer: Karl Buiter · Platform: DOS · Theme: Science Fiction, Epic
Sentinel Worlds built a small but loyal following as a sci-fi RPG that mixed overhead exploration with tactical combat, and Hard Nova takes almost every one of its systems and pushes them further. The biggest shift is tonal rather than mechanical: instead of playing a Federation officer bound by military structure, Hard Nova casts the player as a free-wheeling mercenary, male or female, taking contracts purely for profit. That framing loosens the story’s stakes just enough to make the mission-to-mission gameplay feel more like genuine freedom than duty.
The presentation upgrades are where Hard Nova earns most of its praise. Sentinel Worlds represented NPCs as moving dots on an overhead map; here, each character gets a distinct portrait that appears when a conversation starts, giving even minor characters more identity than the format usually bothers with. Planetary landings changed just as much. Where the earlier game used a flat topological map to pick a landing site, Hard Nova puts the player in an isometric 3D view, flying the ship over a planet’s surface and actively navigating around mountains and other vessels rather than selecting a destination from a menu.
Not everything carried over cleanly, though, and the game’s most persistent flaw is a direct inheritance from its predecessor: once a character joins your crew, you can’t dismiss them, no matter how little use they turn out to have. In Sentinel Worlds, where your crew was Federation-assigned, that restriction fit the premise. In Hard Nova, where you’re hiring independent mercenaries mission by mission, it makes far less sense, and it forces careful, sometimes frustrating decisions about which recruits are worth developing since you’re stuck with everyone you take on. The game does soften this somewhat by letting every character earn experience through multiple activities, especially ground missions, so even a poorly-chosen early recruit can eventually become useful.
None of that undercuts the game’s real strength: variety. Between the mission structure, the colorful NPC cast, and the range of items and equipment worth tracking down, Hard Nova offers more texture per hour than a lot of its contemporaries managed, even with a party-management flaw baked in from its predecessor. It’s a game that improved on nearly everything it touched except the one system that most needed fixing.
How to run it today
Hard Nova’s DOS build runs reliably in DOSBox on modern hardware. It’s a keyboard-and-mouse game throughout, with menu-driven combat and dialogue, so no special controllers or configuration are needed.
Compatibility: DOS (via DOSBox) · Controls: Keyboard and mouse · Setup difficulty: Low
Legal status
Electronic Arts published Hard Nova in 1990, but the game’s software copyright is credited directly to designer Karl Buiter rather than to EA as a corporate entity. That split makes it genuinely unclear who, if anyone, currently controls the rights, since a large publisher’s continued existence doesn’t automatically mean it holds enforceable claims over every title it once distributed. No official current release exists under either name.
If you liked this, try
Wing Commander: Privateer, for another early-1990s take on the freelance-mercenary-in-space premise; MegaTraveller 2: Quest for The Ancients, a similarly systems-dense sci-fi RPG from the same broad era; and Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed, SSI’s licensed sci-fi RPG for players who want a comparable mix of exploration and tactical combat.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hard Nova a direct sequel to Sentinel Worlds?
It's a follow-up in spirit rather than a direct narrative sequel. It reuses and expands on Sentinel Worlds' gameplay structure but recasts the player as a freelance mercenary instead of a Federation officer.
What's different about Hard Nova compared to Sentinel Worlds?
NPCs get distinct character portraits instead of generic map dots, and planetary landing sequences shift from a static topological map to a full isometric 3D flying view where you navigate around mountains and other ships. The core exploration and mission structure carries over, but almost every system underneath it was expanded.
What's the biggest flaw in Hard Nova?
You can't dismiss party members once they've joined your crew, even after they've outlived their usefulness. It's a carryover limitation from Sentinel Worlds that made more sense there, since that game cast your crew as loyal space police rather than hired mercenaries you might want to swap out.
Is there a walkthrough or solution guide for Hard Nova?
Yes, the original release shipped with both a manual and a separate solution guide, which reflects how mission- and item-dense the game's design is. With a large cast of recruitable characters and a wide range of equipment to track, a solution guide was a genuine help rather than a crutch.
Who holds the rights to Hard Nova?
Electronic Arts published it in 1990, but the game's own software copyright is credited to designer Karl Buiter individually rather than to EA as a corporate entity, which makes current ownership harder to pin down than it would be for a typical EA-owned title.