Happy Birthday Wing Commander Arena! (July 26, 2017)

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator



Today we're celebrating the 10th anniversary of Wing Commander Arena's release! We're used to a steady stream of 25th birthdays ticking by as the classics from the early '90s each reach a quarter century, but this one's a little different. The baby of the family has reached double digits, and while it really just seems like yesterday that we were eagerly awaiting its release, a lot of time has passed! If you weren't following us back in 2007, then this recap will help provide a glimpse into what it was like back then, and if you've been with us all along, then read on for a trip down memory lane!

Our story begins in the mid '90s when the CIC Staff cut their teeth on exciting news updates about the pending releases of Wing Commander Kilrathi Saga, Privateer 2, Prophecy, Secret Ops, the Movie, several novels and more. Things changed quite a bit in the early 2000s with the consolidation and eventual closure of Origin, and the community reinvented itself by intensely focusing on two priorities: archiving material related to the creation of Wing Commander games and an explosion of creative fan projects. Things got a nice boost with the release of Prophecy for the Game Boy Advance in 2003, but there was an even bigger surge in excitement for the all-new Arena in 2007.







Nearly ten years had passed since Prophecy/Secret Ops, and it's not lost on us that another ten years have now gone by without another follow-up. The fact that a grand total of nineteen years have gone by with just one new WC game (!!) makes us appreciate it even more today. How and why did this thing come to exist? The stars aligned and we got lucky. There have been at least half a dozen credible attempts to 'bring back' Wing Commander since the fall of Origin, and Arena is the one that succeeded. It came at a vastly different time than the PC games of the 1990s. The franchise already had a long and beautiful history of console ports, but the preferred platforms and genres were evolving rapidly through the 2000s, and the XBox 360 made the most sense in 2006. That's where the growth in the market was at the time, and the nascent market for digital downloads was just about to take off. Of course, Secret Ops was one of the world's first digitally distributed games, but that game was at least half a dozen years ahead of its time.







Electronic Arts commissioned several titles to test the waters, including Boom Boom Rocket which arrived first. EA chose producer Sean Penney to lead the product out of Vancouver BC, and Gaia Industries in New York was tapped to do the art and programming. We're eternally grateful for both the man in charge and the small team tasked with bringing his vision to life. They both demonstrated considerable passion for the Wing Commander brand and a strong desire to "get it right" with a shoestring budget and the technological constraints of the format. They crammed in a wide variety of single player modes, competitive multiplayer and even a cool cooperative capship battle within a 50 megabit limit. Just a few short years later, lesser DLC games would balloon to multiple gigabytes in size, so it's amazing how much they jammed into this tiny package. There were also half a dozen iconic fighters that each sported three variants, and they dug especially deep to pull the Rapier from Super Wing Commander. Further, ships like the Longbow bomber and Pelican transport made cameos in the background.











Man, what a night the release was! We all went to bed on the night of July 24, 2007 with plans to wake up at midnight and play until morning. But since these were the early days of digital releases, the exact time of release wasn't as predictable. A flurry of messages went out when it was discovered that the game was available a few hours early, and Wingnuts from the around the globe scrambled to get online. These were the days before Xbox Live Parties made grouping up with friends easy, so everyone was organized via message boards and IRC chat to link up, form squadrons and blast away. It was a classic case of being easy to pick up, but difficult to master. Ace pilots started to climb the ranks. Fans dug around to understand how to unlock each of the 18 flyable craft. Groups of 16 banded together to unlock the cap ship battle achievement, and people played the ring game to show off their acrobatic skills. The top-down 2D perspective put off some people, but fans that gave it a try were rewarded with a surprisingly deep space combat sim for an ostensibly simple arcade shooter. Agile players could rock cool 3D evasive maneuvers, and careful energy management was required to keep all systems operating when you needed them. Each ship had different strengths and weaknesses and required different piloting styles to master. LOAF even placed 3rd in an official tournament with other professional gamers in order to win an XBox 360 that we were able to give out to a fan.







And we haven't even touched on Star*Soldier yet! We were fortunate enough to help build a huge manual in the spirit of Tiger's Claw or Victory Streak with tons of supplemental fiction that filled in many of the loose ends left open after Secret Ops. This subject alone is worthy of dozens of posts, so check those out for all the details and download the actual manual here (still hosted on EA servers ten years later!).









There were plans initially to include a single player component. Had the game been a bigger hit, the work done on the campaign would have been refined and released as an expansion or sequel. Sadly, that did not happen, but we were gifted with a considerable amount of Gaia concept art that shows off the unreleased Centurion and Gothri fighters, Kilrathi and Firekkan pilots and more. And while we never got more than the initial release, Arena is still available to purchase online and play on the XBox 360. Fortunately, Microsoft has demonstrated a greater commitment to its back catalog of games in recent years, and support is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Although it's a long shot, someday it's possible the game could even become compatible with the XBox One, which would give it some nice enhancements such as future compatibility with the One X, improved party support, built in screenshot and recording ability and more. So get some practice rounds in now - we'll see you in the cockpit!




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.

--
Original update published on July 26, 2017
 
Last edited by a moderator:
These were some great times. I also remember buying the (very) old WC:A dashboard theme for my 360 that night. (Remember the old "blades" set-up? Ugh.)

We played the heck out of that game for a good long while. I still have a single achievement (cheevo!) that I didn't get - I'm pretty sure it was Gunfighter, which I think was glitched? - and it gnaws at me to this day.
 
What a great night that was! We were marathoning the WCA cartoon and LOAF was talking about where we could watch the movie in the middle to fit it with the timeline...and then someone announced in #wingnut it was out and all hell broke loose. I think my first three games were just me screaming in joy at flying around in the game.

I managed to make it to 3 or 4 am before I couldn't stay up any longer and had to pass out...and totally not go to work that day! haha
 
I think of all the different WC games, Arena is the only one that genuinely makes me sad. No, not because I think it's bad or anything like that. I'm not a console gamer, so I actually haven't ever played it. But that's not the reason it makes me sad, either (well, it does, but not that much). What does make me sad is the near-inevitability of Arena one day completely disappearing. Potentially, Arena could be upgraded for Xbox One compatibility - but it was not a success, was never popular, and so it's unlikely to be considered for that kind of treatment.

In all likelihood, there will come a day when we can still play WC1, as always, WC2, Academy, Armada, WC3... every single WC game... except one: the newest game in the series. And on that day, all we'll have left are Star*Soldier, a boatload of screenshots and a couple of YouTube videos and stuff. It's even possible that - again, unlike other WC games - we'll never even be able to extract files from the game.

...Which makes me wonder. Do any of the CIC stuff maintain contact with anyone from Gaia? The studio is gone, right? So, what happened to all the backups? Did any of the devs retain any of the materials produced during development of Arena? Documents? Assets? It's possible that during development, they maintained a PC-playable version of the game - if so, did anyone retain it? Or the source code? Perhaps the tenth anniversary of Arena is a good time to send out a couple of emails to ex-Gaia people, asking about the possibility of copying whatever stuff they've held on to. Even if it were only like some of the source code the CIC retains without being permitted to release it to the public, that would already be a big success.

Edit: come to think of it, do we even know who in particular worked on the game? There doesn't seem to be any credits info out there at all.
 
Last edited:
I certainly understand that concern, and it was my first thought as well, but there's some good news! For starters, we've already extracted the game's models, textures and sounds! (plus concept art straight from Gaia)

https://www.wcnews.com/news/2010/08/11/arena-extraction-3d-models
https://www.wcnews.com/news/2010/08/11/arena-extraction-audio
https://www.wcnews.com/news/search?title=Art of Wing Commander Arena

You may be right about the multiplayer aspect. That is tied to XBox Live and depends on Microsoft's continuing support of Live for 360 games (which has already lasted longer than the original Xbox multiplayer persisted). The fact that they are now, ten years after that first console was discontinued, adding backwards compatibility to the first batch of 2001-2005 XBox games, shows they've definitely got an eye for maintaining things for some time yet. But the single player modes can be played offline, including Meteor Storm, Melee and Gauntlet modes (just without online scoreboards). The game itself can be easily backed up on a USB stick, and so I would consider maintaining a functioning 360 to be comparable or easier than what Wingnuts do today to get Wing Commander running on an Amiga, FM Towns, PC98, SNES, 3DO or Playstation. If the day comes that Microsoft does cut the cord on 360 Live, then I wouldn't be surprised if people came up with some sort of emulated solution to try to keep things going, as they partially do for the original XBox today.

The game has normal credits like anything else. If they don't appear in Mobygames or something, then that's an easy project for someone to submit. Off the top of my head, I believe Taino Soba was the main art guy. Micah Acinapura was one of the software engineers that programmed it. I think I'm still friends with him on XBox Live...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I bought a XBox 360 just for this game and I remember how excited I was for it...and then, because it was released some hoiurs early, I was late to the party and everyone was already playing it. Still, it was a very fun day, and of course, I bought the Arena dashboard themes...they're still my themes today on the 360! It also introduced me to people thinking I was new to video games because I had a low gamer score. What a laugh!

I ,too, still need one achievement. I never completed the ring game...
 
Edit: come to think of it, do we even know who in particular worked on the game? There doesn't seem to be any credits info out there at all.

Sean Penny (EA producer) used to drop into #wingnut a lot during Arena's development and for a while after. I think he stopped by for the bday last year?
 
I certainly understand that concern, and it was my first thought as well, but there's some good news! For starters, we've already extracted the game's models, textures and sounds! (plus concept art straight from Gaia)
That's really cool, I'm not sure if I overlooked these updates the first time round, or if (more likely) my memory is at fault. Having the 3D models and sounds is a significant start, definitely. As for the concept arts, those I did remember - but it's also clear to me that there must have been more than that originally. I think overall my original question remains - is it possible to find someone who still has access to Arena backups from Gaia, and to persuade them to allow the CIC to copy these for long-term backup? Documents in particular would be a really interesting thing. Due to the way this project was developed by an external contractor, there must have been a lot of documents going back and forth between EA and Gaia.

The game has normal credits like anything else. If they don't appear in Mobygames or something, then that's an easy project for someone to submit. Off the top of my head, I believe Taino Soba was the main art guy. Micah Acinapura was one of the software engineers that programmed it. I think I'm still friends with him on XBox Live...
Well... you know, I'm not calling out anyone in particular, but it definitely would be great if somebody could add that data, not just to Mobygames but also to the WC Wikipedia. If I had the X360 and Arena, I'd do it myself, but as things stand, all I can do is be the annoying "could somebody do it" guy :). But it is remarkable that after a decade, this sort of basic info hasn't been added by anyone.
 
I had a 360 but did not subscribe to Xbox live until Arena came out. It was the game that got me to try Xbox live. Arena was a lot of fun, trying to unlock the achievements and the different fighters, blasting others and getting blasted. Happy 10th Arena!
 
Well... you know, I'm not calling out anyone in particular, but it definitely would be great if somebody could add that data, not just to Mobygames but also to the WC Wikipedia. If I had the X360 and Arena, I'd do it myself, but as things stand, all I can do is be the annoying "could somebody do it" guy :). But it is remarkable that after a decade, this sort of basic info hasn't been added by anyone.

Yeah, while it is pretty surprising that someone hasn't bothered to upload the credits in 10 years, it's not nearly as bad as Gaia's other 'big' game, Street Trace NYC, not even having a page at all at Mobygames... :(

At least there's a Wikipedia page for it (though not for Gaia Industries itself...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Trace_NYC
 
Back
Top