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Anyone know of any good, fairly modern games in a similar vein to Privateer? It was one of my favorites growing up, and I'm in the mood to play something like it again.

Tried out some variant of X3, but it just didn't grab me for some reason.

While it isn't coming out very soon, you should check out Star Citizen.

Freespace 1 was good

Besides that there's been a void in space combat games for like a decade

Was going to recommend X3: Albion Prelude, but apparently that isn't what you're looking for hehe.

Star Citizen might be the closest then.

Gah! there's a freeware game out there similar to Elite, but with better graphics. I can't recall the name off the top of my head, but the same guy who did elite plus.

But yeah, the space trade/exploration genre has been empty for quite awhile....

It's older, (although not as old as WC: Privateer) but have you tried X-COM: Interceptor? It might not really be the same kind of thing but it might be worth a try.

May not be DIRECTLY what you're looking for...but Freelancer and it's online community was pretty badass back in the day. I don't know if it's still supported online, but the solo play was great too.