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It was a crowd funding project very similar to Star Citizen that was launched by Piranha Games way back on September 9, 2014. At the time, the game's director claimed that Electronic Arts had given them the Wing Commander license but that they had opted to turn the game into an original IP instead. This story didn't pass the smell test but it did seem clear that Transverse had, probably recently, been developed as a Wing Commander game: the space combat-filled trailer had little to do with the setting described by the crowd funding website and concept art and other behind the screens details revealed Wing Commander terminology throughout the material that had been created. Now, thanks to the website of art director Christopher M. Hunt we have better information about what really happened behind the scenes:

Electronic Arts contracted Piranha Games to create demo re-envision the Wing Commander franchise

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We noticed something very special in an unexpected eBay listing about two week ago: an account listing deleted materials from Pinewood Studios which had posted a used copy of the script to "Darkside". Darkside is the little-remembered original name of Privateer 2: The Darkening, the one it had when the live action film shoot began in 1995. Material from behind the screens of Privateer 2 is rare and special so we were anxious to win the auction and scan the script for the community. Luckily, it worked out!

We have previously preserved a nearly-complete Draft 7 script donated by Erin Roberts. This is a slightly earlier Draft 5 script and it is complete, including the introduction missing from the last version. We've noticed a number of other smaller changes (like missions being set at different bars) but have not had time for a thorough comparison yet. Watch this space!

You can download a PDF of the

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Fan art from 1994! Found while digging through Amiga history for that demo writeup. Looks like it was done in a package called "Real 3D".

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Some cool bespoke menus from Wing Commander IV for the Macintosh.

I was surprised to realize tonight that the gauntlet demo for the Mac is actually different from the PC version... it's ALL Arrows!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Chemicals harvested from Thargoid spire sites have accelerated Aegis's development of a weapon to destroy the Titans.
Professor Ishmael Palin requested samples of coral sap, impure spire minerals and semi-refined spire minerals, which were delivered to the Arque system. These will be used to produce an armoured layer to protect the weapon against the Maelstroms' anti-Guardian zones.
Professor Alba Tesreau, head of Aegis, explained more at a press conference:
"I am well aware that obtaining these substances from the Thargoid spire sites has doubtless cost lives. But the importance of this work cannot be overstated. Without resistance to the Maelstroms' electromagnetic fields, the weapon based on Ram Tah's theory is doomed to failure."
"The Alliance, Empire and Federation have all agreed to redirect the majority of Aegis funding to the anti-Titan project. We have also

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Huh, a tweet from dancingcrab just made me realize how similar the Ultima VIII CD-ROM and Kilrathi Saga boxes are.

... and we simply rotate Bioforge for the alien hand trifecta??

The Kilrathi Saga hand was made by photographing a prop Kilrathi paw. Not clear whether or not Origin also had a severed Guardian arm and glowing Bioforge guy segment laying around.

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Colonel Halcyon’s uniform is a little crazy in the Wing Commander Amiga rolling demo! The final product reduced everything to 16 colors which looked much closer to the EGA version.

The Hornet cockpit slides forward to open instead of hinging up from behind. I can’t explain that change but it didn’t make it to the final version of the port!

Differences

• The preview uses 64-color Extra Half-Brite (EHB) mode while the final version of the game uses the standard 16-color mode.
• Colonel Halcyon's uniform is grey with a green undershirt and a red insignia.
• The pilots running during the scramble are noticeably closer together.
• During the takeoff and landing cutscenes the Hornet cockpit slides forward instead of lifting up. It displays more damage than the game allows during landing.
• The Hornet cockpit is incomplete and does not have any active instrumentation.
• The landing cutscene shows the Hornet landing upside down

Some really nice official news for ED in 2024 were presented ...

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Development on Originator has continued at a frenzied pace, and we are here for it! AllTinker has an update to the program, which greatly simplifies the hacking and extraction process from a multitude of Origin games. Although he describes this as mostly a bug fix update, there are some nice improves such as a new camera movement options in the viewer and support for more file types. Also, check out that gorgeous MCPH Prototype!

The next release refines the scaling slightly further; matching the wingspan of the Dralthi IV between WC4 and Prophecy - the rear of the ships are roughly lined up so this is a more fair size comparison, but not exactly perfectly precise.

The new camera movement makes examining models slightly easier; especially larger ones. I may change how the camera works in future...

The next release also improves the Privateer 2 palettes. It's now using the "true" base palette and the

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Privateer 2's spaceflight has an interesting design where each ship model has just one set of textures... but they are designed to change their appearance based on which of ten or so palettes are selected.

The odd thing is that it's barely used! Each faction has a distinct livery that it uses this to display... but the game itself never actually changes them so you end up only ever seeing each ship with just one look.

I'm not sure why it works this way at all, but it sure is cool to go back and see familiar ships in other colors!

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We are off and running well into the 2024 now, so it's time to conclude our annual new year's poll. We've swapped in a new one about stealth fighters in Wing Commander. The question this time asks which craft you think sowed the most chaos, did the most damage and wreaked the most havoc over the years. This is by no means an exhaustive list of cloaking fighters. In order to make the list of options more concise, we've narrowed the field to generally "enemy" presenting ships. So you won't see Blair's Excalibur that destroyed Kilrah, Earth's defensive screen of cloaking Arrows, the Recon Excaliburs that first scouted the Nephilim or the 28th Century Arrow Eclipse. But there's still some fun picks to choose from below!

We've had a great run of impressive fan projects this past year, and we expect that to continue well into the future! The results show that most fans are eagerly anticipating what's

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If you wanted to buy GOG's $5.99 Wing Commander I & II pack from Origin’s catalog in 1991 the total would’ve come to $309.65. That’s over $700 adjusted for inflation!

And the whole package is still on sale through the weekend for just $1.49!

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Today we're sharing Rylex's large, detailed and beautiful Arrow model. We first got a peek at it more than ten years ago when the craft was originally under construction by Klavs. It's nice to see what it looks like in its final home location. Rylex is a huge Arrow fan, and it's been an iconic showpiece in his collection for this entire time!

It is more than 20 cm long (about 21-22 cm I guess) ... I didn't take the glass cabin off to take the photos. I love it.

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You asked for more options to hack into Prophecy, Secret Ops and Privateer 2 - and AllTinker has delivered! The latest update to Originator add support for extraction of the more complex models in the later Wing Commander games. There's also better support for alternate disc formats such as the 3DO, recognition of P2's xmidi music format and much more. You can grab the latest version of the tool here!

Version 0.3.00 is a fairly broad update.

Support has been added for Prophecy/Secret Ops and Privateer 2 models. The former took longer than I thought - I forgot many models included polygonal faces, which required triangulation - the details of which are quite complicated and probably not that interesting.

Prophecy models are quite modular; eventually I may add a specific Ship Viewer, which combines the various models for viewing - also handling things like the WC3/4 hangars. A task for another day!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Aegis is urgently requesting deliveries of Thargoid spire site materials to Professor Ishmael Palin in the Arque system.
The alien minerals are needed for vital research based on a new theory by the engineer Ram Tah. His research has suggested a method of defeating the Thargoid Titans, although details of the proposal remain classified by Aegis.
Professor Palin, the leading expert in Thargoid biotechnology, explained the initiative:
"I am confident that Ram Tah's theory holds water, and we are working together on its practical applications. There are no guarantees as yet, but we could be on the cusp of developing a weapon with which to engage the Titans."
"However, such a weapon must be able to function within the Maelstroms' electromagnetic fields, which disrupt all Guardian-based technology. I am developing a resistant armour using the organic compounds produced by

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Some silly developer jokes slipped into the Wing Commander III PSX credits!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

And here’s a fascinating Wing Commander I behind-the-screens story I had never heard from Denis Loubet! We alluded to this in our big post about how radar works, but never reported on the original anecdote:

LOAF: Is there anything more thrilling than the Wing Commander I box art? Despite the claim that “what you see is what you play” it’s not a screenshot but a digital piece carefully composed by the incomparable Denis Loubet!

Loubet: I invented the radar display as a super-quick way to know which direction to turn to bring a target into view! I think it worked really well.

LOAF: Wow, I had no idea! It felt so natural to me, I could never go back to the Elite-style radar.

Loubet: I had to do some fast-talking to get it in the cockpits! I’m glad I did! The idea sprang from an idea I had for a flat 360 degree display, where the image got more and more compressed and distorted toward the screen edges

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

As January is already coming to a close, we're happy to announce the winners to our annual fan project of the year event! To start things off, we've got two fantastic projects that we are co-awarding Fan Project of the Year this time around.

The first is Wing Loader, which had a tremendous release in 2023 that fully integrated speech from the Sega/Mega CD version of WC1 into the PC version of the game. With the knowledge gained from achieving this milestone, Destro began work on a larger effort to expand compatibility to other games in the series. This includes the future potential to integrate higher quality video into Wing Commander 3, which we hope comes to fruition!

The other fan project of the year winner is WC4 Remastered. They released a new iteration of the game's playable demo this past year that incorporates a variety of fixes, better joystick support and new in-flight comms.. The team

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The widescreen Confederation images that we posted last week were a big hit, and now AllTinker is back with a whole set of expanded background plates for Secret Missions 2: Crusade! These include some great Firekkan scenes as well as some well-outfitted Kilrathi. He's got a great eye for continuing out the scene in the style of the original art.

Secret Missions 2 more or less done for now. Not everything is visible here because of animation/parallax in the real deal.

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There's a new version of Originator out now that helps extra models from RealSpace engine games like Strike Commander, WC3, WC4 and Armada. AllTinker has built a little animator within the model viewer, which makes it easy to see animated textures like the explosion below. Pretty cool! You can grab the latest version here.

Version 0.2.06 - mostly improvements to the existing RealSpace model support, including:

• Support for TXMV (inbuilt shape) and TXMK (external PAK shapes) textures.
• Added TXM texture support for terrain, both standalone (WC4) and in PAKs (Strike Commander).
• Added support for sprites along with loading/viewing untextured models.
• Added a tool in the model viewer to select the current frame for animated textures.

I think all 3D models from Armada, WC3 and WC4 should be viewable/exportable - let me know if not! There are some objects (specifically the LASR and BEAM types) which aren't