2012.284 (October 10, 2012)

Breaking: New Chris Roberts Game Announced!

Roberts Space Industries has announced their new space combat sim! The new game is a complex, ambitious and exciting adventure. The overall framework is titled "Star Citizen," which Chris Roberts described on two levels: The first aspect involves the player character's citizenship in the universe, which could be determined by either military service like traditional Wing Commander gameplay or successful business a la Privateer. Alternately, the concept also involves bringing fans into the fold and making them citizens of the universe by involving them in the game's development. The single player campaign will be playable both offline or online in cooperative mode with your friends, and there will also be a dynamic multiplayer universe for all the merchants, mercenaries or pirates out there.

The game's storyline campaign has been dubbed "Squadron 42," and it describes the player's role as a member of this elite wing. A lengthy trailer has been released that shows the Bengal Class Carrier, UEES Paul Steed, come under attack in the Kurasawa System of the Vega Sector. Many classic Wing Commander touches were in full effect - from the dash down the red-tinted corridor to being able to see your hand on the joystick in the cockpit. Players will be able to walk around their carrier and even right into their fighter. Each ship has dozens of moving parts, and the spaceflight/carrier-based portions are rendered seamlessly in the same engine. Check out these gorgeous screenshots below!

WCNews Begins Design Overhaul

Today we have begun rolling out a new design for the main CIC website. The previous design was over ten years old, and no longer fit the current direction and focus of the site. A few outdated and obsolete sections have been retired, and the leaner menu system reorganizes our content into four distinct sections:

• Under News, you'll find links to older archives, social media links and the latest poll.
• The Games section links to product background pages where you can find information, downloadable game documentation, patches and more on that particular title.
• Information on characters, ships and places can be found under Universe.
• Forums, #Wingnut and InfoBurst are a few of the sections you'll find under Community.

Almost the whole staff pitched in with ideas or sketches, but most of the credit goes to ace, who was the only one with working knowledge of 21st century web technology. You may notice a missing section or a broken link somewhere. We'll probably get to it soon as we continue to tweak the layout, but you are welcome to point out bugs or oddities by commenting on this post, or by posting to the site feedback forum. If the site looks broken in IE9, you may want to check your compatibility settings. You can do this by disabling Compatibility mode entirely or by pressing Alt (to reveal Internet Explorer's main menu) and going to Tools > Compatibility View Settings and removing wcnews.com if it happens to be listed there.

RSI Crowd Funding Campaign Kicks Off

In order to finance the new game, Chris Roberts has arranged a variety of private investors, but he is also looking out to fans to support the new game's development. The funding campaign is being run like a typical Kickstarter program, although everything is managed directly through Roberts Space Industries. There are numerous tiers that range from $10 to $10,000 contributions, and each provides an associated benefit. For example, the $125 Wingnut tier gets players the Hornet fighter, access to the alpha/beta builds, in-game credits, a ship-shaped USB stick, the game's CD soundtrack, glossy color map, hard bound manual and more! The initial crowdfunding goal is $2 million, but there are top tiers with additional benefits if the community reaches $3, $4 or $5 million. There's even a tantalizing secret $6 million level!

“We Have Liftoff!” Initial Goal $2+ million Pledged Community Updates Star Citizens will get to play in the multiplayer Alpha (12 months) Star Citizens will receive access to the Wing Commander/Squadron 42 campaign (18 months)

“Have Starship Will Travel…” Stretch Goal 3 $5+ million Pledged Increased Community Updates! Monthly Dev. Team Webcasts Monthly Town Hall Meeting with Chris Roberts Star Citizens will get to play in the multiplayer Alpha (12 months) Creation of Professional Mod Tools provided free to players Star Citizens will receive access to the Wing Commander/Squadron 42 campaign (18 months) Deep Storyline On-Line Ship Marketplace Max Missions Star Citizens will receive access to the Wing Commander/Star Citizen universe for on-line persistent play (30 months) Privateer-like gameplay Multiple Star Systems to Explore

Note that the site is currently being hammered by the initial excitement. Backup sites have been set up for North America and Europe in case the main RSI website is unavailable.

Breaking: Squadron 42 Trailer

Good morning! Chris Roberts is set to announce his new space sim title at the GDC in Austin in a few short hours, but the action starts early with Gametrailers.com apparently leaking the trailer! The game appears to be (tentatively?) titled Star Citizen - Squadron 42 and does not yet provide any explicit clues as to which franchise it belongs to, or if this is an entirely new series. We'll have to analyze it frame-by-frame, but for now we present the following screenshots without further comment.

Get ready to jump on the cockpit of Squadron 42 and discover that, even in the furthest reaches of space, there still exists a PC game proud to be a PC game.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in to report this!

10 Minutes To Go

The unveiling of Chris Roberts' new project will be streamed from Gamespot here at 7:00am Pacific Time. (9am Central, 10am Eastern)

Update 1: any second now

Update 2: now live!

Wing Commander CIC - Visit the front page

Official news, fan projects and topics of particular interest to Wing Commander fans.

Wing Commander 'Flat Universe' Unveiled

2013-05-21 -- Long time Wingnut Maslas has revealed the first screenshots of his new fan project, Wing Commander: Flat Universe! He's paired up with his brother to build an impressive new top-down shooter game based on the original Wing Commander. They have some ambitious goals, including multiplayer support and unique cockpit interfaces to fit each classic fighter.

Xbox One Unveiled

2013-05-21 -- Microsoft announced the new Xbox One console today. The system doubles down on the Xbox 360's multimedia strategy with numerous tie-ins to television, apps, multi-tasking and smartphones/tablets. Gaming specs have also been bumped with an 8-core processor and 8 gigs of RAM.

Origin Museum Interviews the Vampire

2013-05-20 -- Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum has a pretty cool toy and an interesting piece of history! The Vampire space superiority fighter pictured below was created by Origin Systems to advertise Wing Commander Prophecy at trade shows like E3. Joe recently came across it in a lot of props and costumes saved from Origin after all these years.

Wing Commander Airing on HBO & On Demand

2013-05-19 -- Blaster reports that the Wing Commander Movie has been added to HBO’s Video On Demand section on DirecTV. You can find the film listing here. It's also been recently airing in high definition on the HBO ZHD channel.

WC Vet to Lead New UT Gaming Academy

2013-05-19 -- The University of Texas at Austin has announced that Wing Commander producer Warren Spector will be leading a new gaming academy at the school. The program will also be directed by Blizzard COO Paul Sams. Twenty slots will open up for promising students in the fall of 2014, and the end result will be a distinguished post-baccalaureate certificate.

A Little Austin Adventure with LOAF

2013-05-18 -- I'm back in Austin visiting LOAF this week, and here's a tiny peek at our exploits. First things first, we hit up three vintage game stores and scored some WC merchandise at each one! It's always so great to see the store clerks light upon mentioning the Wing Commander name.

Strike Commander Gains OS X Compatibility

2013-05-18 -- Good Old Games has added Macintosh support for ten more games, and this latest batch includes Strike Commander! This is good news for fans of classic Origin games, but it doesn't stop here. Fill out this form and let GOG know they need to add more Wing Commanders!

Slick Sabre Slicing Shapeways Soon

2013-05-17 -- Klavs' latest design is another star of Wing Commander 2, the heavy attack Sabre. It's looking both sleek and vicious in these new renders. The F-57 still needs a set of colorful textures, but we can't wait for this bird and its Broadsword bomber brother showing up at Terran Fleet Supply soon!

'Hazardous Duty' Pitch Revealed!

2013-05-16 -- Origin alumni and consummate archivist Binky has discovered another great treasure: the 1997 Origin pitch video for Wing Commander: Hazardous Duty. Hazardous Duty, named after one of George Oldziey’s music tracks for Wing Commander Prophecy, was an attempt to spin Wing Commander off into an FPS game. Binky saved a VHS of the demo all these years and recently digitized it for the ages!

BREAKING NEWS: Wing Commander on Blu Ray

2013-05-15 -- At long last, Chris Roberts' 1999 Wing Commander film is coming to Blu-Ray! Walmart's catalog has outed plans to release the Blu-Ray on August 13, 2013. A re-release of the DVD is also listed.

Space Sim First Look: Wings of Saint Nazaire

2013-05-14 -- Community member Howard Day is working on an indie space sim "in the vein of Wing Commander and X-Wing." The ship models look incredibly detailed, and the cockpit view has a pleasing '90s vibe. Wings of Saint Nazaire is being built on the Unity 3D engine, which means it'll run on Windows, Mac, Linux and even some consoles!

Have a Helping of Homemade Hellcat

2013-05-13 -- Whiplash has moved beyond subassembly construction and now has a complete spaceframe for his custom Hellcat design. His model wings have been joined to the fuselage with wood glue and everything is coming together nicely. The fighter looks really solid and has a slick finish to it.

Time to Think Outside the Box

2013-05-12 -- Wing Commander games are well known for their amazing manuals and other boxed goodies, but the boxes themselves are a treat too! They all feature iconic art, and many even include snippets of bonus fiction, deleted scenes and pre-production graphics that provide an even larger window into the universe. The new poll asks about your favorite.

Wing Commander... In Iron Man 3?

2013-05-11 -- Ever since I first heard that they had chosen "the Mandarin" to be the villain in Iron Man 3, I had been wondering if someone would throw a Wing Commander reference into the mix. Now after having seen the film I'd like to believe they did. The Mandarin character claims responsibility for a number of terrorist bombings in the film.

RSI Approaches $10 Million Milestone

2013-05-11 -- Roberts Space Industries has met another incredible milestone. The team recently hit a whopping $9.5 million in total crowd funding revenues since the October launch of Squadron 42.

Roland MT-32 Emulation Still Beating

2013-05-10 -- Back in the '80s and '90s, supported games sounded a lot better if you had an expensive Roland MIDI card for your PC. Now, it's possible to enjoy nearly the same audio quality through software emulation. We first reported on the munt Roland MT-32 emulator two years ago.

Broadsword Bomber Swoops In

2013-05-09 -- Here's a peek at one of Klavs' next models, the mighty Broadsword! We can't wait to see it side-by-side with the Ferret. The bomber looks massive and powerful from every angle, and the upcoming 3D print should make a great addition to any desk's strike force.

Goodbye, Tony Stockton

2013-05-08 -- There is truly terrible news today, as we have learned that programmer Tony Stockton passed away yesterday. Tony worked on Privateer 2: The Darkening and was the man responsible for the game’s incredible booth trading system.Tony was an extremely active member of the UK game development community and he leaves behind an extensive body of work.

Super Wing Commander Played with Flightstick Pro

2013-05-07 -- Decay has put together another neat video that shows Super Wing Commander being played with a 3DO Flightstick Pro joystick. Console input methods can range from amazingly awesome to quite cumbersome, and Decay's not sold on this particular interface. It's really cool to see it all in action like this however, and most people haven't seen anywhere close to enough Super Wing Commander.

"Whiplash, I want you on my wing..."

2013-05-06 -- Whiplash's hand-crafted Hellcat has seen significant progress on its wings. Each section had to be carefully measured and cut to ensure a smooth fit to the fuselage and engines. A lot of effort went into getting the shape right with the vertical wingtip stabilizers, and the entire wingbox benefits from some new strengthening.

Fan Favorite Ferret Flies into Fleet Supply

2013-05-05 -- Klavs has released his latest model, and this one's a beauty! The P-64 Ferret is now available at Terran Fleet Supply as a 3D print. Owing to its small size and Klavs' innovative modeling techniques, it's also the cheapest design at under $15.

Facebook Page Turns Three

2013-05-05 -- The CIC's Facebook Page hit its third anniversary this past week. It's been a big year for Wing Commander news, and the membership at the page has more than doubled in the last twelve months! The look has also changed considerably.

RetroN 5 Plays SNES, S Famicon & GBA WC Console Games

2013-05-04 -- The Hyperkin RetroN 5 is an upcoming console that emulates a number of popular gaming machines. The system has slots for NES, SNES, Super Famicon, Sega Genesis, Megadrive and Gameboy Color/Advance. If you've wanted to play your PAL or Super Famicon Wing Commander on a North American computer's LCD, the N5's HDMI output will make that quite a bit easier.

Big GOG Sale Knocks 60% Off Low WC Prices

2013-05-03 -- Good Old Games' weekend promo delivers almost 30 EA games at 60% off for the next three days. This means Wing Commander titles are discounted down to a whopping $2.39!

Arena Match Set for Sunday

2013-05-02 -- The Monday afternoon time slot appears to have been a tough one for TrueAchievement. They have rescheduled the Wing Commander Arena achievement-gathering session for this coming Sunday, May 5, at around 4 pm Eastern time (1 pm Pacific, 8 pm GMT). It's still early enough that hopefully Wingnuts from a couple continents can join in.

Steam Indie Game Introduces Curious Ursine Foe

2013-05-02 -- Claymore has spotted an interesting alien race from the new space strategy game StarDrive. It features a Japanese-inspired race of intelligent bears named the 'Kulrathi'. Even with their samurai swords, my money would definitely be on a bonafide Kilrathi to win in hand to hand combat!

Privateer Board Game Nears Printable Trial

2013-05-01 -- The Privateer-themed board game team has posted new pictures of the fan project close to beta testing. Images released last month showed the game running in the Vassal engine for online play, and these shots show the new printable tabletop version. It's very colorful, to say the least!

Virgin Galactic Pulls Off Major Test Flight

2013-05-01 -- Here's some fantastic shots of Monday's first supersonic rocket-powered flight of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo craft. They look straight out of something science fiction, but these are actual photographs! The SS2 hit Mach 1.

Tales of the Claw Announced

2013-04-30 -- Klavs has done an incredible job turning his 3D models into physical craft, but now he's taking on a new platform. He will soon be using his exquisite designs in an animated web series that takes place aboard the Tiger's Claw! Few details have been released, although there is an exciting high resolution teaser wallpaper to accompany the announcement.

GalCiv2 Pack Brings WC Style Designs to the Metaverse

2013-04-29 -- pigsonthewing is an avid Galactic Civilizations player, and he's spotted a ship pack that's inspired by the fleets of Wing Commander. The author has taken a bit of artistic license, but the similarities are clearly there. Grab it here or here!