New Map Interpretation Lights up the Universe Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Klavs has posted a very unique take on the glorious universe map from the Wing Commander Movie. He's started with the super high res capture of the actual physical map prop. Then he removed the border and played with the settings to create a visually enhanced image. Items like Scylla, the Charybdis Quasar and arms of the Milky Way really pop. Even the constellations stand out with a nice glow. The results are stunning!
Hi everyone, I've cropped LOAF's incredible Wing Commander movie map image to mostly remove the rusty border and added the numbers on the border into the map interior. I've also adjusted exposure, gamma, contrast to provide a bit more color and contrast and fixed a little bit of distortion here and there. And now I really want to make a metal print of this! Enjoy!
And here's the original for comparison:

Fixin’ for a New Poll Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Today we've got a new poll about your favorite mechanics in the Wing Commander series. There's a number of really good options, so we expect it to be quite competitive! There's just one Kilrathi choice, but we actually have several droid-based selections.

Our annual new year's poll was also interesting this time around. It usually starts pretty positive and then gradually normalizes as the month goes on. However, this time the positive responses had a second surge this past week. As we mentioned a month ago, the general cloud of pessimism over the state of the world is quite understandable, but I'm encouraged by what Wing Commander fans continue to do to keep things moving forward!

And the Winner Is... Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Votes have been coming in all month, and there's been a clear trend in the results. As January is coming to a close, we're ready to announce the winners! This year the numbers were pretty clear cut. With that being said, every project got a good handful of votes, which shows how there's something for everyone brewing in the community.

The top contender for 2021 was the Wing Commander 4 Fan Remake. While Wingnuts wait for a playable test, the team has provided a steady and informative pace of updates that tell people what they're working on. And these are formatted in short but slick articles with accompanying visuals to help provide a good sense of the state of things.

We have two established runners up this year. The first is ODVS' AI/Neural Net Enhanced Wing Commander Videos. We've seen more and more fans play around with the new WC3 language options lately, and it's been fun to see what may be possible with games like WC2 or Privateer 2.

The other runner up is Wing Leader. We saw another intense burst of activity this past summer with Howard Day adding new characters, shipboard locations and the Krant fighter to his prototype engine - all of which got a lot of positive attention. Congrats to all our winners!

Once again, kudos to all of the nominees who continue to do great things to keep the Wing Commander community excited and engaged year round. We're looking forward to seeing what everyone does in 2022!

Prophecy Advance Video Scores Bonus Points With Series Rundown Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Lon Seidman has put together a fun video about Wing Commander Prophecy for the Gameboy Advance. At least that's what he set out to do, but he ended up prefacing that first with a nice ten-minute rundown of the Wing Commander series as an introduction to the franchise. Lon then gives the game a good overview, and he also provides tips on how to get into the series today via GOG. There's even a WCNews.com shout out (thanks!). Prophecy Advance has some definite limitations, but it's massively impressive what Raylight was able to pack into a tiny handheld cartridge. They even added in four player multiplayer!

You can read more about what the game meant to us here and find the story from the developers' perspective here. More of Lon's videos are posted regularly at Lon.TV.

The Modern Vintage Gamer posted a great video about a Tomb Raider port on the GBA from the OpenLara project. It reminded me of another game that pushed the hardware: an amazing port of Wing Commander Prophecy - a 1997 PC title that made use of 3D accelerators. We'll take a look at the port and my love of Wing Commander in this Retro video!

Go For a Quick Excalibur Run Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Mac's got a short clip today, but what it lacks in length is more than made up for by its awesome subject matter! He's taken Klavs' glorious Excalibur model and run it through its paces. There's even a rousing soundtrack thanks to George Oldziey's live orchestra recording. Enjoy:
I've become fascinated with 3d Animation from doing the Tarawa Video.
Thanks to Sebastian for the tip!

Open Matte: More Than Meets the Eye Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

AD has been on a twenty-three year mission to learn more about all things relating to the Wing Commander Movie, and his latest research is about the "open matte" broadcast of the film. At least Australia was airing this version in 2008, and there may have been other times and places that got it as well. As you can see by the example below, by adjusting where the edge of the frame is, viewers can see detail like the universe map's border and Paladin's journal in the intro. It'd be pretty amazing to see what other visual data might exist out there! If you have a copy or any more detail, please let AD know!
The DVD and Bluray are in 2.35:1 as intended. This screenshot is the only proof that it aired that way I've seen. Anyone else out there happen to catch the film on TV in this format?

The extra map borders - not normally visible in the movie - in that shot match the high quality digitizing of this map I've seen since that update was posted. The map hung for a number of years in the LA Cloud Imperium offices of Chris Roberts.

Paladin's notebook in the lower left is also visible. It's the one he's making notes in while looking at the star charts at the beginning of the movie... He also uses that notebook when he inputs the shortcut coordinates for the Claw to make the jump into the Ulysses corridor

Speed Runners Continue to Refine Wing Commander Playthroughs Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

What the Fox Project has posted a pretty impressive speed run of Wing Commander 1. The game features an extensively branching mission structure, so players can experience vastly different games on multiple playthroughs. As we've previously noted, there's some strategy involved here. One short path through the game is to eject through the Enyo, Gateway, Chengdu and Port Hedland systems, then win in Hubble's Star (or Port Hedland) and Rostov, then eject again through Venice and still rout the Kats from the Vega Sector. This shouldn't be seen as cheating - it's its own type of art form to figure out how to legitimately game the game and still see the winning ending in the shortest possible time. The final score here is 23 minutes and 7 seconds, which is amazing! It's also half the time that speed runners were hitting four or five years ago. Check it out below:
Well, it's been a year since I've tried running anything - but I've really wanted to get back into space. Wing Commander is an awesome series from my childhood I'm excited to run, and hopefully improve my time on.

The Price of Freedom... Varies Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

FrankyFiggs14 has posted another classic French mag scan, and this one has an interesting take on Wing Commander 4's tagline phrase. It comes from the December 1995 issue of Joystick. After translation, the big caption reads, "The Price of Freedom is Eternal Combat." As LOAF notes, "Eternal combat sounds a little less prestigious than eternal vigilance!" It's also one of the many pieces of copy out there that advertise a December release. After tons of marketing went to print, the game was delayed until February 12 the following year. Pretty neat artifact all around!
A few other pages from the issue for context:
And here are some English versions of the ad for comparison:

WC Challenge Coins Delivered Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

ZOmegaZ has been steadily shipping out batches of challenge coins over the last few weeks, and most people who pledged in his recent Kickstarter should have received theirs. Ours came this past week as well, and they're very snazzy! The pictures don't quite do the material justice. All of the gold outline is very glittery and the colors pop as well. Not bad at all - we'd love to see another Wing Commander design!
Everyone who provided me with shipping information, your coins are now on the way! I'll give everyone else a few weeks, and in the meantime I'll be working on the next round of coin designs.
LOAF: The challenge coins ZOmegaZ’s Kickstarter are here! They turned out pretty neat and now I’ll never have to pay Shotglass for another drink (or ice cream sundae in the SNES version). Yes I also got a Frasier.

WC Vets Hitting the Convention Circuit in 2022 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It continues to be a good season for Wing Commander autographs. Despite the ongoing pandemic, there are quite a few conventions still planned for this year. Here's some highlights that will feature familiar faces:

The Texas Frightmare Weekend will provide a double opportunity in Dallas from April 29 to May 1 with both Ginger Lynn Allen and Matthew Lillard appearing. Lillard also has a solo appearance lined up at the HorrorHound Weekend in Cincinnati March 25-27 as well as a mail-in event via CPA Authentics in April. Francois Chau, who played Vagabond in WC3/4, also has a busy year with appearances at the Lexington Comic & Toy Con March 24-27, Huntsville Comic & Pop Culture Expo April 22-24 and Rangerstop & Pop Comic Con June 10-12. There is another neat mail-in option via Galaxy Con in March as well. Robert Rusler, who played Seether in WC4, will be at the Mad Monster Party Carolina February 18-20 and Cult Classic Convention February 25-27.

A handful of upcoming conventions have been getting canceled as the omicron wave continues, but it's likely those those later in the spring (and located in or around Texas) could go on as scheduled. Plan accordingly and be safe while getting your autographs! Thanks to LeHah for the tips!

Fan Project Vote Under Way Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Somehow we're well into January, so our annual Fan Project of the Year vote will soon be coming to a close. There's still time to register your favorite, so here are the nominees one more time. Scroll down for the official poll entry!
  • AI/Neural Net Enhanced Wing Commander Videos - ODVS has expanded on his award-winning enhanced WC videos by adding new language options for WC3, dabbling in 4K, experimenting with WC2/P2 and pushing image quality even further.
  • Bonkus Maximus' Streams - Bonk has been publishing Wing Commander livestreams all year long. He's covered every main game in the series, plus spinoffs like Academy. In the words of his nominator, his streams are "both good quality and plentiful."
  • Collectors: Rare WC Finds - This one is a different type of nominee. For the first time, we're recognizing the combined efforts of adventurous fans (such as, but not limited to, the work of Dennis Mull and Christian Klein) searching far and wide to build their Wing Commander collections with all manner of limited editions, different international translations and other exotic finds.
  • DefianceIndustries' Art - This is another example of one vote doing a lot of heavy lifting. Defiance has done everything from animated series style art (with integration into the WC1 engine) to Arena inspired renders to a whole tabletop mod with gorgeous miniature depictions, just to name a few of his projects.
  • Flight Commander 2 - We got an updated playable demo for FC2 this year. The spaceflight doesn't just look gorgeous, it also has very cool indoor game flow options. This project is just bursting with potential!
  • Gemini Sector RPG - The crew of the has their work cut out for them in the Gemini Sector. This RPG stays very active and is supplemented by numerous live chats, animated briefings and even livestream tie-ins.
  • Graphical Novel Project - EmuMusicFan sketched lots of gorgeous Kilrathi this year - and got some great attention for it!
  • Language Mods - This one is another combined option because so many people made so many big updates this year. WC1 into German, WC2 and P1 into Spanish, cleaned up text and more. There's a lot of great modding happening to even the oldest WC games!
  • Lego Creations - It was another fantastic year for Lego building. It continues to amazing me how authentic fans can make these ships look!
  • Mac's Lore (& Art) - Mac's YouTube channel really hit its stride this year with a variety of Wing Commander and other sci-fi videos, but he didn't stop there. He also shared a whole bunch of high class art that was used in the making of his vids.
  • WC4 Fan Remake - The WCRespace team is hard at work on bringing a next generation update to this beloved chapter of the Wing Commander series. Throughout the year, they kept us updated on the progress of their art and technology. We're looking forward to seeing something playable in 2022!
  • wcdx 2.2.1 - The latest version of wcdx makes the program functionally complete for the Kilrathi Saga version of WC1 and adds cockpit damage back into WC2. It takes what was once a somewhat buggy experience and makes it a very compelling way to play Wing Commander on modern systems!
  • Wing Leader - Howard Day's Wing Leader project also had a pretty productive year with new characters, shipboard scenery and the addition of the Krant to the game engine. This continues to be a project we get a lot of questions about, so we're looking forward to another burst of activity in 2022 hopefully!

The Lineup Looks Pretty Sketch Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

EmuMusicFan has shared this collage of the many different Wing Commander characters that he's sketched out for his graphical novel project. He's been at it for almost two years and built up quite a stable. Many of the faces here will be familiar favorites, but some dig deeper into some of the novels' lore and haven't otherwise been pictured before. It's nice to see them all in one place for the first time!
I have drawn more than twenty WC characters appearing of being mentioned at least once in the official works.

New Lore Vid Follows the Tarawa's Adventures Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The new Mac's Lore video alluded to earlier this week has finally dropped! It's a focused look at the Wake class escort carrier TCS Tarawa. We start with a comprehensive overview of this ship type as well as some highlights from the 'End Run' that preceded the False Armistice. Most Wingnuts are pretty familiar with these early novel exploits, and fortunately there's also some really good False Colors history included that's less well known. Mac also created some really beautiful animations and scenes with Klavs' models that are wonderful to see here - don't miss it!
When 1/3 of the carrier fleet gets blown to hell by the Cats, the Terran Confederation looks to stealing ideas from World War 2 to keep them in the game. It ends up working astonishingly well.
Thanks for HotT for the rapid tip!

Sharing Some Spanish Perspective on Wing Commander Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

In our continuing mission to share bits of Wing Commander history from around the world, today we have a review of Wing Commander from the January 1992 edition of the Spanish gaming mag Micromanía. This comes from the RetroManía30 Podcast. I used to love all those little insets describing the fighters and stuff like that. The little cuts on the corners of the screenshot boxes also give it kind of a spacey cockpit vibe. I'm not so sold on the pink background, but it was the '90s!
There goes the review of Wing Commander (1990), published in MicroManía # 44 (SE). It was the beginning of a long saga, which to this day continues to have a multitude of followers. A space flight simulator, with a spectacular cinematic setting. A great title!
As a double feature of Spanish content, The Game Abbey also has a Spanish language retrospective feature on the WC series. Language transition captions work on this clip, so it's easy to convert to your native language and see what they have to say! Spoiler: it's "simply one of the best and most influential games in history."

Wake Up to a Dazzling Wallpaper Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Mac reports that his next WC video is going to take a bit more time, but as a consolation prize, you get a snazzy new wallpaper! It once again features Klavs' escort carrier floating serenely in in orbit. I like the shift in color balance with emphasis on the blue tones this time around.
The next Wing Commander is gonna take longer then I expected. But, whatever, here's another rendered image I did for it that I totally did not rip off from a movie in another Sci-fi franchise.

GOG Weekend Sale Discounts EA Games Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

GOG.com runs a lot of sales, and I'm always so surprised how popular each one is. You might think that by 2022 everyone who is going to buy Wing Commander already has their copy, but that's very much not the case! We keep hearing stories about new prospective fans dipping their toe in the Vega Sector waters through one of these events, so we'll continue to keep highlight them. As such, GOG is running a weekend sale on vintage Electronic Arts games. This extends to other Origin franchises like Ultima as well as some EA favorites like Sim City. Check it out and fill out your collection by Monday morning here!

Tangy Gets the Last Word Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

I'm not a Wordle player, so I can't claim to understand what's going on here, but LOAF has this historical WC nugget to share with Wordist Wingnuts everywhere. Yesterday's word was 'Tangy', which is a term with some associated Wing Commander trivia to it!
Saturday everywhere! So Origin’s Wing Commander Secret Ops page in 1998 included this screenshot that got fans talking. Who was TANGY, a new NPC wingman or just what the guy taking the screenshots chose as a call sign?
Soon after I was invited to tour Origin! At one point my tour guide brought me into a plain cubicle and excitedly announced “I knew you’d want to meet Tangy!”. It turned out Tangy was a random marketing guy and they thought the community was obsessed with HIM for some reason.
Here is an actual photo from the trip. That is me and Neil Young (not Tangy). Despite appearances I am a seventeen year old high school senior here and not a Tintin villain’s middle aged henchman.
Later that year, Origin put up a new site for Wing Commander Prophecy and… well! Tangy had been photoshopped out of the screenshot and replaced with “Poland”. Badly, the font doesn’t match the game at all.
We even compared the Flash and HTML versions of the website and found a second Tangy/Poland swap! To this day we don’t know why, though my guess is Tangy left Origin and someone was being a jerk about it.
The screenshot even shows up on the inner flap of the Wing Commander Prophecy Gold box, now with no name at all. Anyway thank you to Wordle for reminding me about the totally unnecessary saga of TANGY.

BREAKING NEWS: Enhanced & Extended Wing Commander 1 Sound Track Released! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

George Sanger, aka The Fat Man, has just announced the immediate release of his Wing Commander I Complete Original Soundtrack: "MT​-​32 Archival Edition." Way back in 2007, George put out a fantastic album of WC1 music known as Wing One, and it's been on our highly recommended list ever since. This new edition scrubs Fat's archives for a complete reckoning of all the music in the game. Today's release clocks in with 55 tracks and 85 minutes of audio - compared to 27 tracks and 34 minutes in the original release fifteen years ago.

You can stream the entire album below or listen to all of the individual tracks at the publisher Xeen's YouTube Channel. I'm listening right now and it's wonderful! You can also buy a digital copy for $10 at Bandcamp to get access to high quality downloadable files - or just thank the team for their continuing commitment to Wing Commander! When you check out, there's a little field to "include a message to The Fat Man and Team Fat." Why not let them know that you'd like a physical CD or vinyl release in the future?!

Howdy, Fat Rangers!

Here's a sweet listening surprise--An archival release of the best version of the Wing Commander I music, hot off the press.

ABOUT THIS RELEASE

This "archival" release is the result of my finally yielding to many years of Andrew Harrington's relentless hounding. It was entirely his vision to put out a thorough and complete "once-and-for-all" release of every single MIDI file from the game, with as much documentation as could be mustered. And my hat is off to him and I am grateful, for he has brought us all, me kicking and screaming, to a very pleasant, very listenable, and very final-feeling version of the music for Wing Commander. Thank you, Andrew, this is your baby.

Similarly, I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the massively talented artist Xiao Zheng in Shanghai, who insisted on mocking up album covers for all my the games I composed for, even before he knew I was releasing music.

Come to think of it, my early journey with Dave Govett was much the same. An enthusiastic guy, calling me to ask if he could come over to see what kind of gear I was using. I had him write a couple of tunes for me, and he was the first member of Team Fat (besides me) before I even knew he liked orchestral movie music. When I handed him the assignment to do the demo for Wing Commander, I was met with the surprise of a lifetime.

Hey, World, take this hard-won advice down: Collaborate. And here's how. When you find somebody enthusiastic, who makes you feel good about who you are when you're around them, find out if they have talent and skill. If they do, turn them loose and get out of the way. It's like riding a wild horse--you don't know exactly where you'll end up, but it will be one wild ride. credits

released January 14, 2022

Music produced by The Fat Man, George Alistair Sanger
Composed by Dave Govett and George Sanger

Check Out Malcolm McDowell's New Official WC Autograph Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We recently reported on Malcolm McDowell's official website adding Wing Commander autographs to their online store. In case you were curious about the final product, here are the results! LOAF's copy came a few weeks after placing an order, and it's pretty nice! It's an odd choice of art, but that also makes this somewhat unique. You can add one to your collection for $65 plus shipping here.
Ta da! It’s a nice heavy stock paper with a semi-gloss printing. Why did they choose a 1995 Wing Commander III Playstation port ad? Who knows!

Tech Demo Has Major Arena Vibes Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Cherno has shared a neat video of tech demo project he's put together. It's a top-down 2D space shooter with Wing Commander models. This reminds me a whole lot of the early Arena concept shots. Although it's conceptually pretty basic, there are some nice touches with familiar asteroids and damage sound effects included. Cherno's been toying around with different ideas to give the game some more meat, and we hope he continues to develop the idea further!
This project was started about two years ago using Unity, then abandoned and now (January 2022) I got back to it, fixed some bugs, and made this short gameplay video. What you see is all there is to it: just glorified placeholder assets using the original graphics and sounds of Wing Commander. I always wanted to make a top-down game but the limited field of view restricts the gameplay mechanics. Initially, I opted for a straight conversion of the ship and weapon characteristics from the original Wing Commander game, but eventually realized that it has to be more a an arcade, shoot-em-up experience in order to be fun to play.

Wing Commander Challenge Coins Made, Shipping Soon Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

ZOmegaZ continues to make expeditious progress on his Wing Commander challenge coin Kickstarter campaign. The funding phase closed just over a month ago, and he's already gotten the manufacturer to fabricate his designs. So far, it seems like this is moving along just like clockwork - and the coins look cool too! Contributors to the project could start seeing packages arrive soon!
I think they all look fabulous. Now the shipping begins! Again, some of you don't seem to have received a survey link. I can't resend it for some reason, but don't stress, we'll get it worked out.

Vintage Russian Show Highlights WC Series Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We've had a number of non-English language vids in the news lately... and here's another one! But in the various translation methods aren't quite your style, this one has been helpfully translated in real time by native Russian speaker enilenis. Seeing WC on vintage television programs was always a rarity, and catching an international show was even harder, so we're really lucky that opportunities like this exist! This one comes from the Russian program "Hard Off." It covers Wing Commanders 1-3, but the focus is on the flashy FMV of the latter title. WC3 was a big mainstream crossover!

Mac Teases New Lore Vid With Bengal Under Attack Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Mac has posted a new teaser about his next Wing Commander-themed video. He maintains a nice mix of topics on his channel that touch on content from multiple universes, but the WC series is always a go-to win. There's a new wallpaper image to go along with this - it features a nice reversal of the Shiraak being assaulted by Arrows as seen on the Armada box art.
PS, the next video wont be Iron Man related, but it'll be a #WingCommander thing since I'm still having trouble coalescing the Tribes lore into a video I'm happy with.

Hint: It'll be a carrier that will eventually serve as a start point for future related videos.

Also I bet you guys will never guess where I ripped off the shot composition for this one.

Russian Mag Heaps Praise on Prophecy Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

AD has been doing a lot of digging into magazine archives lately, and he's found a lot of Prophecy love in the Russian mag Game.EXE. To kick things off, the December 1997 issue had a big WCP advertisement and four page review spread. It earned a 91% score and "Hall of Choice" award by the editors. They followed up in a big way in February 1998. In this issue Prophecy received a big "space simulator of the year" title, they held a contest and also interviewed producer Rod Nakamoto. As I've said before, I just like admiring the interesting and colorful vintage layouts, but if you don't speak Russian, there are still ways to interpret what's been written. A smartphone app with a camera feature such as Google Translate does a pretty good job of converting the text in real time to your preferred language.

So Is This Considered a French Kiss Now? Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

DocteurJ has done lots of Wing Commander videos for Oldies Games TV, but this one's a little different. Rather than streaming a playthrough, this one is an analysis of the romantic relationships in Wing Commander 3. He walks through what happens if you choose Flint, Rachel or neither. J's videos are always in French (using ODVS' high quality French WC3 package in this case), and it's interesting to see how they managed the dub of such a sensitive scene into another language. I couldn't get the built in YouTube universal translator to work, but the smartphone version of Google Translate worked pretty well.
Alors que le colonel apprend la mort d'Angel, Rachel et Flint osent désormais draguer notre cher

That Must Have Been Some Jump Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Super Wing Commander has cutscenes showing the Tiger's Claw jumping between (most) systems. There are a couple special versions: this is the unique 'fleet' one that starts SWC's version of The Secret Missions. But do you notice anything funny about it?
The ships that enter the jump point (first picture) are the Claw plus an Exeter destroyer, a Dilligent transport and four Venture corvettes. But out the other end comes... the carrier, Diligent, Exeter, six Hornets and four Raptors. What happened in there?!?!
Here's a clip with all the 'regular' jumps the game actually plays together. Enyo doesn't have one since it's the start, Dakota, Border Zone and Tartarus are skipped in favor of special midgames and Hubble's Star just doesn't play a jump for some reason.
author avatar
LOAF

Sport That 1996 Style Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Last week we shared a cool Australian promotional shirt for Wing Commander 4, and now LOAF's found one from Singapore. The design is markedly different with the Black Lance symbol over the WC4 logo on the front. Classic Blair, Tolwyn and Seether art is featured on the back side on a lightly stone washed background. Very nice!
Scored another great find on southeast Asian shirt sorting Instagram

C&VG Visualizes Double Reviews Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

AD found a fun trove of Wing Commander goodness in the May 1996 issue of Computer and Video Games magazine. It's naturally a treat to find a WC article in any publication, but this one has two - plus a bonus! Wing Commander 4 initially debuted on the PC on February 12, 1996 while Wing Commander 3 made its way to the Playstation on March 27. Due to publication and newsstand schedules, that put both in back-to-back review slots in this issue. There's lots of lovely screenshots to admire here. Interestingly enough, they actually gave the WC3 PSX port a higher score than WC4, which is pretty surprising. Nevertheless, there's a final tease on the upcoming release list. Wing Commander 4 is showing as an in-development title for the 3DO. While this was briefly the case, the game was not to be!

Get Your Digital Centurion Here Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Klavs is kicking off the new year with a new model for Wing Commander fans. He's posted this downloadable Centurion design based on popular demand. It's a fan favorite year after year. This one's not totally finished, and the underside is a bit bare, but it's complete enough for many purposes. If this is just what you needed for your next 3D printing project or fan mod, grab the file at Sketchfab here!
Hi everyone, I've had some requests for the Centurion model lately. I've not had the time to finish it, but here she is in her current state. Have fun!

Fan Project Vote Kicks Off Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's been a big weekend for annual front page posts, and today we've got another! This formally kicks off our "Fan Project of the Year" contest for 2021. In further recognition of the great things Wingnuts did all year long, we're recognizing a sampling of them to win our annual award. Folks sent nominations in during December, and we've added a couple of our favorites to the mix to produce the slate below. Read up and cast your vote! Good luck to the nominees!
  • AI/Neural Net Enhanced Wing Commander Videos - ODVS expanded on his award-winning enhanced WC videos by adding new language options for WC3, dabbling in 4K, experimenting with WC2/P2 and pushing image quality even further.
  • Bonkus Maximus' Streams - Bonk has been publishing Wing Commander livestreams all year long. He's covered every main game in the series, plus spinoffs like Academy. In the words of his nominator, his streams are "both good quality and plentiful."
  • Collectors: Rare WC Finds - This one is a different type of nominee. For the first time, we're recognizing the combined efforts of adventurous fans (such as, but not limited to, the work of Dennis Mull and Christian Klein) searching far and wide to build their Wing Commander collections with all manner of limited editions, different international translations and other exotic finds.
  • DefianceIndustries' Art - This is another example of one vote doing a lot of heavy lifting. Defiance has done everything from animated series style art (with integration into the WC1 engine) to Arena inspired renders to a whole tabletop mod with gorgeous miniature depictions, just to name a few of his projects.
  • Flight Commander 2 - We got an updated playable demo for FC2 this year. The spaceflight doesn't just look gorgeous, it also has very cool indoor game flow options. This project is just bursting with potential!
  • Gemini Sector RPG - The crew of the has their work cut out for them in the Gemini Sector. This RPG stays very active and is supplemented by numerous live chats, animated briefings and even livestream tie-ins.
  • Graphical Novel Project - EmuMusicFan sketched lots of gorgeous Kilrathi this year - and got some great attention for it!
  • Language Mods - This one is another combined option because so many people made so many big updates this year. WC1 into German, WC2 and P1 into Spanish, cleaned up text and more. There's a lot of great modding happening to even the oldest WC games!
  • Lego Creations - It was another fantastic year for Lego building. It continues to amazing me how authentic fans can make these ships look!
  • Mac's Lore (& Art) - Mac's YouTube channel really hit its stride this year with a variety of Wing Commander and other sci-fi videos, but he didn't stop there. He also shared a whole bunch of high class art that was used in the making of his vids.
  • WC4 Fan Remake - The WCRespace team is hard at work on bringing a next generation update to this beloved chapter of the Wing Commander series. Throughout the year, they kept us updated on the progress of their art and technology. We're looking forward to seeing something playable in 2022!
  • wcdx 2.2.1 - The latest version of wcdx makes the program functionally complete for the Kilrathi Saga version of WC1 and adds cockpit damage back into WC2. It takes what was once a somewhat buggy experience and makes it a very compelling way to play Wing Commander on modern systems!
  • Wing Leader - Howard Day's Wing Leader project also had a pretty productive year with new characters, shipboard scenery and the addition of the Krant to the game engine. This continues to be a project we get a lot of questions about, so we're looking forward to another burst of activity in 2022 hopefully!

Happy New Year! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Happy New Year everyone! Our annual January 1 poll is live, so we're giving fans a chance to weigh in on 2022. I know it's hard to be optimistic about things given the state of the world, but I'm very confident Wingnuts will do their best to make the most of the year ahead!
The last poll asked what your favorite iteration of James "Paladin" Taggart was. He comes to us in many forms, but people tend to like him in his earlier game takes: WC3, WC1 and WC2 respectively.

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