If there is one genre that I miss in gaming today, it has to be a dedicated space-fighter flight sim. I’m talking games such as Freelancer, Starlancer, Descent and of course, Wing Commander. Hell, I still happen to own a rather bulky PC version box from yesteryear, complete with multiple CD-Roms, manuals and extras of Wing Commander Prophecy.
I know that I’m not the only person who feels this way, which is why I’m looking forward to Wing Commander Saga: Darkest Dawn, an interquel that is set between the second and third games in the series.
It’s been in development for over ten years now, but Darkest Dawn could have been a scuppered project had EA decided to let loose the litigation hounds. Fortunately, they’ve given the tribute title their full approval.
Project lead Anton, or “Tolwyn” as he is known in the online community, spoke to Gnomes’s Lair about how EA had given the team the go ahead that they needed to release the title.
“A big thank you has to go to our fans for their extreme patience over the long development period, as well as to Chris Roberts, Origin, and EA for their generosity in allowing Saga and other Wing Commander fan projects to be released and distributed,” Anton said.
It’s been an ambitious project as well, as the decade that Darkest Dawn spent in development has resulted in a title with 55 missions, 70 cinematics and over 11 000 lines of dialogue that have been recorded by 60 voice actors, all built on top of the Freespace 2 engine.
And for dedicated fans of the Wing Commander mythos, fear not, as Darkest Dawn is a story that has been carefully constructed in order to easily fit into the established storylines of the original Wing Commander games.
I personally cannot wait to get stuck into this title when it arrives on March 22nd, and relive the days of cheesy full motion video and even cheesier dialogue, while blasting Kilrathi fighter ships in the cold, dark vacuum of space.
Last Updated: March 19, 2012
