BREAKING NEWS: New Video Interview!

• Video - "Game Modes Interview" (44.2 mb, .WMV)
• Video - "Game Modes Interview" (44.9 mb, .MOV)

Sean: Wing Commander Arena is about sixteen player online multiplayer space dogfighting. That's the core of the experience. We have single player modes as well but really the meat of the experience is in the eight on eight team battles and the sixteen player free for all battles. We have a variety of game modes in Wing Commander, so one of them is called Capital Ship versus Capital Ship and in this mode you and seven friends get together with your capital ship, which is a massive battlecruiser, and go up against eight other guys who have their own battlecruiser. So it's Confederation versus Kilrathi. When you get these two capital ships coming across from each other sending broadsides at each other and you've got sixteen ships in the middle all dogfighting, it's truly spectacular. In true Wing Commander fashion, communication is going to be an important part of victory. We've got Team Chat for the battles so you and seven of your buddies get together and you can talk amongst yourselves using team chat. Your opponents can't hear you. In terms of the arcade experience, if you're going to compare this to other arcade games that are out there right now there is no comparison. Depth of play, the beauty of our environments, sixteen player multiplayer, team speak, I mean there's nothing to compare to it out there right now. Bang for the buck, I don't care what we price it at there won't be anything that will give you the value that this game will give you. Come and play Wing Commander, it's the best thing on Xbox Arcade!

It's Showing Up On Radar

Online magazine Games Radar has posted a new preview of Wing Commander Arena! Like many others, this article is very positive about the gameplay. Here's the summary:

Wing Commander Arena may be an extremely downsized version of the epic 3D space shooters it took its name from... but it's an extremely upgraded version of the retro shooters we usually see on Xbox Live Arcade. The 16-player combat and wealth of options might win over even the most disgruntled of original Wing Commander fans. We'll find out this summer, when the game is scheduled to go online.

• Video - "Sneaky Cam" (29.8 mb, .AVI)
• Video - "Sneaky Cam" (20.8 mb, .FLV)

Everything's Ship Shape

We took some time yesterday to collect all the recent data and put a new coat of paint on our Wing Commander Arena Ships Page. The article now includes all the hanger images released to-date set alongside specification charts for each ship. You can go ahead and learn their guns, missile and devices (where known)! There's also a new "cameos" section, archiving some of the cool background ships which have appeared in recent previews (like the Longbow and Centurion). The next time you find someone talking about how Arena doesn't have any classic Wing Commander elements, show him the ships page!