BREAKING NEWS: Wing Commander Arena Announced! (February 22, 2007)

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
Simple words do not express the excitement of this moment. Wing Commander fans have waited nearly a decade since the release of Secret Ops... and today we learn that our years of dedication were not in vain: Electronic Arts has officially announced Wing Commander Arena for XBox Live Arcade! Arena focuses on multiplayer action, and includes game modes for up to sixteen players at once! Here's the official press release and logo:
EA Launches Wing Commander Arena onto Xbox LIVE Arcade
Thursday February 22, 1:00 pm ET
Legendary Game Franchise Delivers 16-Player Online Space Combat

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS - News) today announced the return of its beloved Wing Commander(TM) franchise with Wing Commander Arena in development for the Xbox LIVE® Arcade(1). With up to 16 players, Wing Commander Arena offers the largest multi-player melee experience to date on Xbox LIVE Arcade. The game is scheduled to go live worldwide on the Arcade service in Summer 2007.

Wing Commander Arena is a fast-paced space combat game where players can team up to attack other teams of ships. The game introduces the classic franchise to an arcade-style experience that allows up to 16 players online in battle at once. Players can propel their customized ship through space, fire torpedoes and unleash deadly gravity bombs as they try to climb the leader board. Online players will compete for Frag count, high score and dueling stats.

"We're really excited to deliver unparalleled multi-player arcade action," said Chip Lange, EA Vice President. "The design for Wing Commander will appeal to both long-time fans of the franchise and immediately engage anyone who wants the melee style action of an arcade shooter."

Wing Commander Arena will feature four styles of play: single player, multi-team, multi-player free for all and multi-player duel. Within the game there are eight game maps that include team maps, free for all maps and dueling maps, so Wing Commander Arena offers a gameplay experience for every Arcade gamer, whether they want a quick ten minutes of action or a longer more immersive game.

Wing Commander Arena is produced and published by Electronic Arts and cooperatively developed with Gaia Industries. This is the second EA title for Xbox LIVE Arcade with EA's first title Boom Boom Rocket set to launch this Spring.

(1) Players must have an Xbox LIVE marketplace account to play Wing Commander Arena.

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Original update published on February 22, 2007
 
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Recruitment for my team begins here, only cool kids are allowed, though. Wimps and posers, leave the hall.
 
But why only X-Box

Can someone please tell me why the hell they develope such a goodie only for x-box. I have waited long enough for a new Wing Commander on PC. I still want to know what happened to Blair. I do want a WC6 not a second WC Armada for a console, which cannot beat the hardware of my PC.

But maybe this will be the beginning of a new Wing Commander decade. We shall hope for it.
 
Wow... look at that wonderful logo... It even has the little spaceships from the original. This is awesome news!
 
sweet jebus.....

oh man i'm pumped for this...

i know people will complain about no pc game and don't get me wrong, i would love that but the xbox live is pretty amazing and lots of people use it...

i think it's fantastic
 
This is great news! Hopefully it will be available on the PC eventually so even more people will get the chance to play it.
 
WOOHOO!

WOO

FREAKING

HOO

Oh and EA has been calling for ideas from its employees for space combat, but sales of the genre have apparently been a cause for concern.

So everyone buy buy buy and prove them wrong!
 
Wow looks like I'll actually be frequenting the Wing Commander section of the site on a regular basis now. Oh wait, well at least the WC Arena portion! :D

Awesome news!

Edit: AD, lovin' that GamerTag!
 
I haven't posted in years, but I've been checking out the site every once in awhile...saw the news on IGN and came straight here!

To say I'm ridiculously excited is an understatement.
 
Hmm.. any guesses on what the gameplay will look like?

My guess is a top-down action shooter ala SubSpace, but with fancier graphics and whatnot..

I guess we'll find out soon enough.

-Capn J
 
Woooa, after all these years...

I dont believe that after all these years I finally got to play something fresh again (I just wonder about the joystick part though) Hehehe, anyway, I knew when I received my christmas present (xbox-360) good things were to come soon :D

best regards,

RG
 
We *might* see it on PC oneday, XBox Live was supposed to be well integrated with Vista, it wasn't, but we may eventually see live arcade games for PC, still I would be surprised if many games were released retroactively like that.
 
Can someone please tell me why the hell they develope such a goodie only for x-box. I have waited long enough for a new Wing Commander on PC. I still want to know what happened to Blair. I do want a WC6 not a second WC Armada for a console, which cannot beat the hardware of my PC.

But maybe this will be the beginning of a new Wing Commander decade. We shall hope for it.

Yeah, this news is kind of bittersweet for people without an xbox or access to broadband

Still, it is great that Wing Commander is making a comeback!
 
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