《银河飞将III（Wing Commander III）》30周年复刻版据称亮相，含原始录像重制

A remake of a 1990s EA PS1 game is reportedly in the works and has seemingly leaked. The game in question specifically hails from 1994, when it was first released. And when it first released, it was only available on DOS and Mac. A year later, in 1995, it came to the 3DO. Many will know the early EA game as a PS1 game, though, because in 1996 it came to PS1. This was arguably the most popular version of the game. Nonetheless, it’s a fairly niche 1990s release that many will be surprised to hear is returning.

Over on the social media platform Bluesky, Steve Lin, a board member of the Video Game History Foundation, relays word that during the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, Jim Vessella, who has been working on digitizing the EA video game archive, revealed that a re-release of Wing Commander III with video from the original tapes is coming. This re-release will include Kilrath Saga Integration, Master FMVs Source, Master FMVs Upscaled, Community Enhancement Patch, Gameplay at 60 FPS, Controller Support, and will be on both Steam and GOG. Right now, this is the extent of what we know about the project, other than that it will use some type of “30th Anniversary Edition” branding.

A Forgotten EA Game

Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger is a sci-fi space combat sim game and the third game in Chris Robert’s Wing Commander series from developer Origin Systems. And it notably featured some big stars at the time, including Mark Hammil, Tom Wilson, Malcom McDowell, and John Rhys-Davies.

The game was both a critical and commercial success, and was quietly one of the better games of its year. That said, the series would go dormant not long after this. In 1998, the second-to-last release in the series was released. Then came a nine-year wait until 2007, when the last game in the series dropped. Since then, it’s been dormant; though in 2011, the game itself was re-released on GOG.

What made Wing Commander III notable is that it was an early example of a big-budget game that tried to bridge the gap between video games and Hollywood. In this sense, it was ahead of its time. It was also important in the progression of the interactive movie and in establishing what cutscenes could be in a game.

Its return would be a surprise given that it’s EA and given that the series has been dormant for so long, but it’s not like this is a random game. This was a major game for its time. That said, while the image above is legit and definitive, still take this new information with a grain of salt. This project is obviously real, but there’s no guarantee anything will come of it, and if something does, who knows in what exact form it will be. At the moment of publishing, though, Electronic Arts has not commented on anything above.

For those looking for something to play now, and not something in the hypothetical future, a classic PS1 game was released on PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2 a few days ago.