One of the ChickenBoy catalogs i've been looking at lists WC4 3DO as "Coming Soon". I'm assuming it never reached completion though.
Also marked as "Coming Soon" are WC3 and WC4 for the Sega Saturn. Guessing wildly, i'd bet these would probably use a more reduced engine such as the 3DO's (or even more simplified, the Saturn games i played back in the day were mostly sprite-based, as i recall...). Do you happen to have any info on these?
Ah! I have been asking everyone willing to listen to me about just this lately and I haven't been getting very far. Very interesting to hear that these games were listed in the catalog--I was using a 'cancelled games list' that an xOrigin employee put together for us ten years ago.
I believe Wing Commander III for the Saturn was the most complete of the cancelled fifth-generation Wing Commander games. Here's a 1995 print ad for the lineup of Wing Commander III ports that includes the Saturn version:
https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wc3ad1.jpg
... and here's a May, 1995 press release announcing that Electronic Arts will be showing Wing 3 Saturn at E3:
https://www.wcnews.com/articles/press/press5.shtml
("The Sega Saturn’s built-in texture mapping and impressive 640 x 480 high-resolution graphics provide exceptional video quality and realistic gameplay.")
I've since learned that the only thing on the show floor was the intro movie playing on a Saturn. Wing Commander 3 PSX was in the same state and there was a playable version of WC3 3DO. I've found references to an E3 video shot and sold at the time that includes recordings of all three demos. The release date was to be November 30, 1995.
Unfortunately, it wasn't done in Austin. The only FMV port done at Origin was Wing Commander III 3DO (by, I believe, the group that did Bioforge). Lion Entertainment handled Wing Commander 3 and 4 for the Mac as well as Wing Commander 4 PSX and because they were in Austin had a close relationship with Origin.
Wing Commander III PSX and Wing Commander III Saturn were done on the west coast, contracted out of EA proper rather than Origin... so we don't have much information on them or good contact with any former team members who may know the fate of the Saturn game.
As for the others, I've got nothing. There's another that wasn't advertised to the best of my knowledge: Wing Commander III for the M2. My best guess is that the port strategy was something cooked up at Electronic Arts and the advertising was done at the behest of the console manufacturers who were trying to sell their systems on what would be available in the future rather than Origin's more conservative sales strategy. The thinking was probably that once we have WC3 ported to these platforms WC4 would be a matter of swapping around assets but not building new tech. They probably ditched the entire strategy after Christmas '95 slaughtered several consoles (the Lion version of WC4 is actually separate from any original plan--it's not built on the WC3 work).
