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Here's a weird one we came across on Reddit: a user named eightiesjapan has AI upscaled 5k and 8k versions of one of the wallpapers included with the GOG version of Wing Commander IV!

Refreshed one of the wallpaper that is given as an extra when you buy WCIV on GOG. Theirs is 1920x highest res, mine is 5k (light 2.5mb) and 8k hi-res (34mb) and clean without logo & writing.

Upscaled using topaz + lightroom with custom kodak presets. Gave it a specific (i hope) 90s look with film grain.

• 5k version (5 megs)
• 8k version (35 megs)

Here's the original version, for posterity:

• 1280x1024 version
• 1600x1200 version
• 1920x1080 version
• 1920x1200 version

The GOG wallpaper is based on the game's key art painted by massively talented Origin artist Sam Yeates.

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Destro, the genius behind Wingloader, has made the first public release of RegFaker, a registry patch for Wing Commander Prophecy and Secret Ops. Destro says:

RegFaker - A Registry Patch for Wing Commander Prophecy & Secret Ops
Current Version: v0.1

Hey, I figured I'd share this here to see what the reception is.

I've created a RegFaker.dll that hooks ADVAPI32.dll that stores the functions that the games use to access registry items for the games. Upon first launch it will dump the registry items to a RegFaker.ini. This gives the user the ability to add custom codes such as {Location} that returns current working directory, this will essentially make Wing Commander Prophecy and Secret Ops portable applications so that the games folder can be renamed and moved around on the drive without breaking the installation.

I did this specifically for Proton and Linux compatibility with Wing Loader and for my own

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Can you believe we're already heading into the middle of summer? That doesn't just mean swimming pools and ice cream and not being able to afford the electric bill… it also means the next monthly Wing Commander Cartoon Party! And this time around we're moving on from Star Trek to its cool 90s competitor Babylon 5, a series particularly beloved by the teams behind Wing Commander. We've selected four episodes with connections to WC to watch next weekend and we'd love for you to join us!

Season 2, Episode 18 - Confessions and Lamentations: The 1997 Wing Commander Universe map includes at least two nods to Babylon 5. The first is this system in the Kilrah Sector, Pak Ma'hran, which is a reference to the pak'ma'ra. The pak'ma'ra are one of the show's background races, a species of scavengers that seem to generally disgust everyone else. They're never the main point of a story, so we've picked an episode in

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We were shaken but also stirred by the first appearance of 007 in Wing Commander movie club last week! This week, I asked the crew to pick from a selection of religious movies… so of course everyone voted for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Steven Spielberg's introduction to Indiana Jones. Spoiler warning: it's a nearly perfect film. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Our big, unexpected connection this time around is actually… Privateer 3! The game's design document talks about its in-the-works script as being based more on Indiana Jones than Top Gun (a movie we saw very early on in this series). You can read the entire design document here.

The Privateer 3 script should also be a departure from the Wing Commander's Top Gun-ish fighter jock story line. It should have more of an Indiana Jone-ish adventure movie quality, with shady characters, clandestine encounters and even a touch

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Multiple corporations have supported the recent announcement of Colonia's tenth anniversary celebrations.
Vox Galactica business correspondent Marlon Royce spoke to several representatives of major names from the technology, transport, mining and tourism industries.
"Colonia stands as a beacon of human achievement in deep space," commented Naomi Landseer, chairperson of Lakon Spaceways. "Lakon Spaceways is synonymous with success out in the black, and we applaud the continued success of Colonia's people."
Meanwhile, Jaques and the Colonia Council gave Vox Galactica more behind-the-scenes information about planned festivities.
"It's high time the corporations in the core systems showered us with some love and attention," Jaques said enthusiastically from his bar. "So, we're inviting them to help us pull together the first 'Colonia Fair' - a galaxy-sized exposition that'll include exhibitions,

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Tech website Ars Tehnica has run a new profile of Wing Commander IV which offers a solid summary of the game's history and raison d'être. It's always good to see the old games and their cultural importance highlighted like this from an outlet with a wide audience! It begins:

If I had to pick a chunk of the 1990s that feels the most 90s-ish to me, it’d be the two-year stretch between 1996 and 1997. 1996 saw me graduating from high school and starting college; 1997 saw me meeting my future wife and falling in love. While I tried to figure out how to navigate the University of Houston’s still mostly pre-digital first-semester registration process (we had to sign up for classes over the phone, with touch-tone buttons, like cavemen!), the larger world kept turning in ways that felt inevitable and good and right. The Cold War was in the rearview mirror—how could we ever have been so worried about nuclear