Display MoreWow, another year has come to an end! As we chase these final few hours before 2023, here's a look back at some of the noteworthy stories of the past year.
If you can remember far back enough, the year actually began with a new official WC product release! The MT-32 Archival Edition of the WC1 soundtrack was published by The Fat Man and Team Fat. Also in early 2022, people started to receive their Malcolm McDowell autographs printed on WC3 Playstation adverts. Fan projects also started to deliver in January, including the custom WC Challenge Coins that ZOmegaZ commissioned. It was a great way to kick off the year!
Wingnuts filled their collections with older vintage items as well. LOAF found this super rare Singaporean WC4 promotional shirt and Dennis Mull framed and mounted a variety of really awesome Wing Commander art pieces. And sometimes what Wingnuts are looking for just doesn't exist, so elend made his own gorgeous Dralthi this year as well.
Fan projects hit it hard all year long with numerous steady updates from Klavs, Mac's Lore, WC4 Remastered and more. As most everyone is aware, a fantastic WC4 Demo was released for the CIC Birthday in August, so fans also got a chance to play the enhanced version of the game. Modders really got into making WC ships in Space Engineers and there was a return to Kerbal Space Program and Lego designs.
Arena turned 15 this year, and we were fortunate that its achievement glitch was short lived. Some really smart people also made excellent progress on getting Arena to run in an emulator to protect against a possible future when the game is no longer supported on Xbox Live. Even Super Wing Commander emulation, Free DOS and WC4 Linux compatibility made further progress as well. I was also surprised to see how retro portable handhelds took off this year.
A few other fan favorites were the conclusion to the Gemini Sector RPG's latest campaign, a new set of WC3 set photographs and the phenomenal birthday message that Klavs got Mr. McDowell to record for our birthday.
Of course, I would be incredibly remiss to not mention LOAF's many many articles that deeply explored a wire range of Wing Commander topics. This went into much more depth than our typical news posts and uncovered fantastic connections, revelations and history for all to enjoy. Here's a sampling:
Last, but not least, we ended the year on a high note with the announcement of a Wing Commander vinyl album in the works! We have this and more exciting things to look forward to in 2023, and we'll be here to share the news as it breaks!
