As of the March 27 2025 patch (version 3.220) the Ancestral Pistol and Splitter SMG is impossible to buy from the supplier in Freelancer, making it impossible to complete a new Prestige.
To my knowledge, this affects all PC platforms, Xbox but NOT PlayStation. Let me know in the comments if you think this is incorrect, though. I do not personally have a PS4 or PS5 to confirm.
There are also related bugs in contracts and main missions, where if you attempt to bring the Ancestral Pistol you’ll load into the level without it. If you attempt to load into a a contract or main mission with the ancestral pistol in a briefcase, you get stuck on an infinite loading screen and have to end the process to get out of it. I’m hoping we can bring this to IOI’s attention so it gets fixed before the upcoming Twitch Drops campaign, as it is a really bad look for the game to be in this broken state while trying to attract new people to try it.
I am experiencing the same symptoms on Steam.
If I bring it in the briefcase in main mission or contract mode, it doesn’t freeze, but it stops at the loading screen.
I just need to vent about how incredibly frustrating this has been to me. I just got to the end of Prestige 94, and was excited about only having a few more prestiges to go. Now I’m stuck waiting for them to fix this, and they haven’t even put it on the known issues list yet.
I’ve reported the bug through zendesk. I’ve made posts about it on multiple forums. I’ve tagged @Combatglue and @ioi.dk on BSKY. No official response anywhere as far as I can tell. How does IOI keep breaking things and releasing broken patches like this over and over? It boggles the mind. The Outstanding Service coin was unavailable in Freelancer for over a YEAR before they fixed a simple typo, and when they did, they introduced a new bug with it where it can show up in a showdown reward crate, despite being a Freelancer Tool. Today is April 1st, and I feel like a fool for still playing this game.
Does this mean that eventually the player WILL reach a point where the game softlocks you and you can’t progress in Freelancer any further? And that’s there’s nothing they can do at all?
Say you’ve unlocked/bought every weapon on your walls except for any of these two items, you complete a campaign and get rewarded with them in that corner crate but the game just won’t load them so you can’t open the next campaign…
That seems like such a dangerous bug. No more playing Freelancer or getting prestige for you.
Really baffling how as of late, IO is all about taking one small step forward and then two massive steps back with almost every decision they make…
Does this mean that eventually the player WILL reach a point where the game softlocks you and you can’t progress in Freelancer any further? And that’s there’s nothing they can do at all?
Yes, it means that at most you can complete 1 Prestige (if you already had the Ancestral Pistol before the patch) and then you can’t Prestige again until they fix this bug.
I finally got a response to my support ticket, but it looks like an automated response telling me to verify game files, reinstall my game and update my drivers. Looks like it will be a while before this is actually fixed.
Well when you head to the weapon crate, there is nothing there besides the name of the weapon so when you go to collect it, it makes the animation sound as if you collected it but nothing happens and the loading icon doesn’t disappear in the bottom left corner.
Here’s the photo like I’ve posted in the original post as well
It’s incredible that modders have to do what IO doesn’t. Not only that, but after looking at the full notes of this community patch, is amazing the amount of pretty big bugs the game still has that haven’t been fixed officially, such as the Dubai suspects getting stuck while evacuating, the swapping safehouse paintings, the cake in Paris blocking an intel to unlock the freelancer safe and the auto hostile cave after killing Rico Delgado with the sub. Once again, I’m so jealous of PC players
Honestly, IO should just make this patch official, I’m pretty sure the makers of it would gladly share the technicals behind those fixes to IO just so they only have to copy-paste and done.
How is it possible that the game is more broken now than how it was at release, IO is pulling a reverse Cyberpunk 2077 over here. I don’t care if there isn’t any new content next season, but please, IO, fix your game!!
