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We made it! Most of us, at least. I know some of you lost loved ones in 2020, and you have our deepest sympathies. A lot has been written about a year that words don't really do justice. Usually we take this time to look back and come away inspired by the vast efforts of the Wing Commander community to reach new heights celebrating our favorite fandom. It still feels weird to celebrate this time though, because although 2020 may be over, the worst may be yet to come in the next few weeks and months. But there is still hope that help is on the way, and we will turn a corner in a matter of months. Until then, please continue to be vigilant and stay safe. We will do the same. And we'll be here every day to provide the latest Wing Commander news. If nothing else, it's a fun distraction in a difficult time. So our annual recap may be somewhat low key this year, but here we go!
The year started with high hopes about the new roaring twenties and all. We got some pretty ships from Defiance Industries and Klavs and saw progress on the Through the Moongate goodies. And although the project may seem semi-dormant, there was even a new Flat Universe Destiny's Way released in January - the first in four years! All Wings Considered was also still pumping out weekly episodes.
It was an excellent year for fan made tools and patches. UnnamedCharacter's WC Toolbox got upgrades to work with both Armada and WC3.. The work on WC3 even revealed never-before-seen background art that give us a greater look at the inside of the Victory. wcdx also got a big update to smooth Kilrathi Saga compatibility with WC2 and the Special Operations. And no summary of 2020 would be complete without mentioning ODVS' enhanced Wing Commander videos. I still can't believe how they actually manage to create new pixels where none exist, and it's relatively painless to drop them into WC4 and Prophecy!
Some entirely new and promising fan projects were revealed. Destro started work on a project to add Sega CD speech to DOS WC1, which delivers on something Wingnuts have been asking for for years. EddieB unexpectedly took the wraps off Flight Commander 2. Defiance also unveiled a gorgeous animated WC project done in the style of Academy. Mike Winterbauer had another successful WC art Kickstarter, so some of us got some great new wall art. Although not a new project, the WC4 Fan Remake really kicked things into high gear and even launched a dedicated website to chronicle the game's progress. The Gemini Sector RPG was also quite active. They also maintain a project website, which is something we're happy to see going further into the '20s.
In May we had our first BREAKING NEWS headline in a few years when it wasn't announced that Wing Commander Academy would be coming to Peacock. And we followed it up with another just a couple weeks later when Privateer 2 director Steve Hilliker released an awesome 25th anniversary trove of Privateer 2 footage. That was followed up by some fun additional commentary by developer Paul Hughes.
This year we learned a little bit more about the origins of our favorite games. An early version of the famous Wing Commander comic in Nintendo Power was unearth, and LOAF found the clip art that used to create the WC Movie nose art. We posted a little known high quality version of a classic WC4 trailer and also unearthed a nifty prerelease mockup trailer for the Wing Commander Movie. Perhaps the most high visibility video of the year though was when Spacedock made an overview of the Midway, which got some 100,000 views!
It was also a good year for our physical collections. I reorganized my WC goodies, and LOAF added a film reel copy of the WC Movie to his collection. On the virtual side of things, the WCPedia got a little bit of love, including a Hugh overhaul of the CCG materials.
Legos were surprisingly big in 2020. Bricks with Wings made some great stuff, and Malcav did too. Then we managed to end the year with a bang in the form of LYP Studios' gorgeous Morningstar model.
This was a fun overview of the highlights, but there were plenty more day-to-day updates for these projects and others. I'm already hearing about some good stuff bubbling up that we'll be able to post in the days and weeks ahead, so I'm very confident that 2021 will continue with more of the same! We're looking forward to going through it all with you!
