Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger is to get a surprise remaster and re-release. The space combat game was originally released in 1994 and remains one of the most popular and lauded games in the venerable franchise.
The remaster was apparently made possible during a project to digitise all of Electronic Arts' copious assets still on tape. During this process, it was discovered that most or even all of the FMV sequences shot for the Wing Commander franchise had survived intact, allowing it to be re-edited at a much higher resolution. The low-res nature of the original FMV, which made even an upscale very difficult, had made this project doubtful before. Now we should be able to enjoy Mark Hamill and John Rhys-Davies giving it their all in a cheesy action space opera.
Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger - 30th Anniversary Edition (actually 32nd, but okay) will also include upgraded textures and controller support, and will be available on Steam, GoG and the EA App. No release date has been confirmed.
More intriguing is the mention of the "Kilrathi Saga Integration," which reportedly includes upscaled re-releases of Wing Commander and Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi, along with their expansion packs. These games do not have the lavish FMV sequences of the later games, but are older, so are both easier and trickier to re-release.
Reportedly if this project is successful, remasters of Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom and Wing Commander: Prophecy may follow. It's unclear if Wing Commander: Privateer and Privateer 2 (starring Clive Owen as a hard-bitten space mercenary/trader!) are also in line for the treatment.
The original Wing Commander series was helmed by Chris Roberts, who is now orchestrating the release of ultra-ambitious spiritual successors Star Citizen and Squadron 42, the latter of which just got a Q2 2027 release window.
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