News categories list

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

GOG is kicking off a belated new year's sale to help you start 2024 with a complete set of digital Wing Commander games! The entire series is on sale, but the exact discount varies. Most titles are 75% off ($1.49), but Armada, Prophecy and Privateer 2 are 65% ($2.09). Hop to it!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Not only does Bioforge reuse the shuttle model from Super Wing Commander but the opening shot of their respective intro cutscenes is very similar! Bioforge's art director, Bruce Lemons, had worked on SWC.

BioForge's Mondite dropship (left) vs. Super Wing Commander's shuttle to the Tiger's Claw (right)! BioForge uses it several times (and you see the interior at one point!) so I really need to go back and get some more reference shots.

AD noticed that the '05' on the front of the ship appears in a SINGLE FRAME of the Super Wing Commander intro. Neat!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Shipments of Guardian relics and Unclassified relics have boosted hopes of developing a weapon against the Thargoid Titans.
The Aegis-led initiative gathered supplies of the crystalline relics left behind by the Guardian species, as well as the Unclassified relics that result when they interface with Thargoid surface sites.
These were requested to support a project based on new theories expounded by the engineer Ram Tah, considered the leading expert on Guardian history and technology.
Aden Tanner, who works as an anti-xeno strategist for Aegis, made a brief comment to Vox Galactica:
"As always, we're grateful to every pilot who took part to support Aegis. I don't mind sharing that Ram Tah is delighted, and is currently refining his theory with the aid of specialists from all three superpowers."
"We hope to reveal more details very soon, but at this point it's worth

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Following our Wing Commander references in StarLancer we thought it would be a good idea to archive the other major Wing Commander reference in a Digital Anvil game: this loading screen from Conquest: Frontier Wars which claims the game is "Loading Pegasus NavCom AI". This references the Confederation space station that appears at the start of the movie (and it's related MacGuffin, the NavCom AI device that will allow the Kilrathi to reach Earth). Conquest, a real time strategy game set in space, was the second Digital Anvil game released, published by Ubisoft in 2001. The NavCom message is one of several that flip by while any of the game's maps are loading. It's currently available on GOG for anyone interested in trying it themselves (though we'll warn you the 'Pegasus' loading message now passes too quickly to be seen with the naked eye!).

We've also learned that a higher quality version of the

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we've got some stunning visual updates for the Confederation project to enhance WC1. AllTinker rebuilt each of these familiar settings with extra wide backdrops to the sides. They look very natural and fit in great. Be sure to click in for an animated cutscene sample!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

January continues to afterburner along - as does our annual Fan Project of the Year contest voting period! If you missed it last week, there's still time to get your vote in. Check out the nominees below and cast your ballot towards the project you were most impressed by in 2023!

• First up, in alphabetical order, are the series of Ambiance videos by Scribbler. This isn't the flashiest project, and that's by design! He's taken it upon himself to craft a variety of scenes inspired by the first three Wing Commander games, set them to calming music and add the hum of daily life aboard a Terran Confederation carrier. I really appreciate when fans do something different like this!
• The Confederation project is an all new mod that hit the scene in 2023. AllTinker is working to reverse engineer aspects of the original Wing Commander and build in numerous enhancements, such as making them support modern

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

President-elect Felicia Winters has officially selected new heads for each executive department of the Federal government.
She announced her choices during a session of Congress, where she gave a short speech about her upcoming presidency. This was followed by a similar statement from Isolde Rochester, who will serve as Winters's vice president.
Sofia Trevino, political journalist for The Federal Times, reported:
"With these appointments, Felicia Winters is laying the foundations on which to build a new Federal government. Long-serving figures in the Liberal Party are finally being rewarded with key positions in the upcoming administration."
"One notable loyalist is Congressman Bai Zheng, who will be Secretary for Security. She is already well-known for opposing the Proactive Detection Bureau, and will undoubtedly take pleasure in overseeing the surveillance unit's closure, as per Winters's

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

As the saying goes, great artists steal... and what we're looking at today is a case of great artists stealing from themselves! We thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at StarLancer's cutscenes to pick out assets and finished footage that it reuses from the Wing Commander movie. StarLancer's cinematics were developed by the same artists at Digital Anvil who worked on the Wing Commander movie with the two projects overlapping for a time. As a result, a number of 3D models made it from one to the other and (in the case of the game's various act breaking interstitial news reports) several completed sequences from the movie were used to sort of decorate the background of StarLancer! Let's take a closer look...

Intro

StarLancer's introduction shows the Coalition's dastardly Pearl Harbor-style attack on the Alliance and it includes several reused Wing Commander assets! The cinematic model for

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

And now Klavs can ponder the routes of Pilgrim expansion throughout the galaxy every time he steps into the shower. I love that it's easier than ever to have things custom printed and manufactured with your own art on them. People have gotten really creative with this, and today's topic is no exception! Klavs has taken the awesome relit universe map that he made a couple years back and had it printed extra large across a shower curtain. Amazing!

I daresay this is the most epic shower curtain I have ever owned!

I wonder what other shower curtains were in contention...

Anyhow, here's the digital source for comparison:

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Lots of cool chatter about the bold, risky and nearly perfect choices for the Ultima 7 and 8 box art today. So let me add some background on another very interesting Origin box art decision, Wing Commander IV!

For the WCIV marketing campaign, Chris Roberts wanted to focus on a broader audiences. Gamers would play the new Wing Commander… so the spend focused on selling the interactive movie experience to a wider audience. This meant stuff like radio and TV spots, trailers in movie theaters and advertising in non-traditional places like in-flight magazines.

Game advertising was in transition in 1995 anyway but you can see the Wing Commander IV stuff is VERY distinct from previous titles.

So for the box, Chris wanted something similarly distinct. What they came up with was this, a quasi in-universe design with only the mysterious enemy logo (teased throughout the print campaign)… all in totally