Wing Commander 3 remaster revealed after EA finds the original FMV tapes

[DelPiero58]

Wing Commander 3: Heart of the Tiger appears to be getting a 30th anniversary edition, PC Gamer reports. EA producer Jim Vessella revealed it at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. While digitising EA's video archive, he found about 600 original full motion video source tapes. That discovery seems to have made the remaster possible

A slide from his talk, shared by Steve Lin of the Video Game History Foundation, lists the planned features. They include the original and upscaled cutscenes, and Kilrathi Saga integration, which probably means bundling Wing Commander 1 and 2. The game will run at 60 frames per second with controller support. It will be released on Steam, GOG and the EA app

The timing is fun. The reveal came less than a day after Cloud Imperium released a trailer for Squadron 42. Both games star Mark Hamill and John Rhys-Davies. Squadron 42 is in many ways a spiritual successor to Wing Commander, created by Chris Roberts

Wing Commander 3 was a landmark in 1994. It used real actors in full motion video cutscenes, with a Hollywood style cast and budget. Mark Hamill played the hero, Colonel Blair, and the game felt like an interactive film. It was one of the biggest PC games of its era

PC Gamer's Rick Lane wonders whether this is a passion project that Vessella managed to get approved, since EA rarely revisits its older games. Either way, he says he is glad to see it happening, and I agree. It also connects nicely with the Ultima rights story from last week, as both series came from Origin Systems. Finding original tapes in an archive is a reminder of why game preservation matters so much

Did you play Wing Commander 3 back in the day? And which other classic games would you love to see remastered from original materials?

It looks like Wing Commander 3 is getting a remaster, after EA producer discovers the original FMV source tapes in the companywww.pcgamer.com