It looks like Wing Commander 3 is getting a remaster, after EA producer discovers the original FMV source tapes in the company's archives

Typical, isn't it? You wait ages for new information on a Chris Roberts-directed space combat sim, and then two lots come along at once. Less than 24 hours after Cloud Imperium Games surprise-released a glossy trailer for Star Citizen 's single-player spinoff Squadron 42, it now appears that Roberts' 1994 classic Wing Commander 3 is getting a remaster courtesy of EA.

The project is headed up by EA producer Jim Vessella, who revealed the remaster during a presentation at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo . The remaster will include cutscenes based on Wing Commander 3's original FMV recordings, after Vessella discovered 600 source tapes while digitising EA's video archive.

In a post on Bluesky, Steve Lin, a board member of the Video Game History Foundation , shared an image of Vessella's talk , which shows a projector slide detailing the remaster's features. The remaster is called Wing Commander 3: Heart of the Tiger—30 th anniversary edition. A slightly unfortunate name, given Wing Commander 3's was released 32 years ago.

As for those features, the slide says the remaster will include both source and upscaled versions of the game's FMVs, and will include "Kilrathi Saga integration"—which presumably means it will bundle in Wing Commanders 1 & 2 and their various expansion packs. The remaster will also run at 60 FPS and—in additional details shared by Lin —will feature controller support and will be released on Steam, GOG, and the EA app.

Re-release of Wing Commander III coming out with video taken from the original tapes courtesy of a restoration project led by Jim Vessella who has been digitizing the EA video archive

Alongside Wing Commander 4, Wing Commander 3 is generally regarded as the strongest entry in the series, heightening the cinematic flair of the games with a stellar voice cast including Mark Hamill and John Rhys-Davies (both of whom also appear in Squadron 42). It's notable for being one of the few games from the era to actually tell a good story using FMVs , so the fact that Vessella has managed to retrieve to the original videos is especially exciting.

It's an interesting project to emerge from EA, given the publisher hasn't shown a huge interest in reviving or revisiting its older games. Despite being fantastic, EA's Dead Space remake didn't sell well enough for the publisher to greenlight the same treatment for the sequel, and in recent years the company has consolidated resources around heavy hitters like Battlefield and EA Sports FC. So is this simply a passion project by Vessella that he managed to get greenlit? Or the start of something bigger? Either way, I'm glad to see it happening.

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Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net . But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.