Hi everyone, thank you for being part of the Wing Commander community. 

This restored Wing Commander: 35th Anniversary Edition was a passion project for everyone involved. For the community modders, their contributions were generated by volunteer hours in the spirit of bringing joy to the greater community. For the folks at EA, the vast majority of this work was done alongside our ongoing full-time projects. We did our best, and hope you will please forgive anything that may have slipped through cracks.

The goal of this Steam discussion thread is to provide answers to some common questions and outline known issues, in order to help players get set-up with the game. As you may recall, tutorials weren’t common for PC games in the 90s, and it can sometimes be challenging to learn the core loop or controls.

PC Games often relied on printed manuals to teach the player these items and introduce them to the game world. As such, we have included many of these scanned documents with the 30th Anniversary Edition in the “Extras” folders, and we recommend them as a great place to start your journey.

Cheers,

~ The 30th Anniversary Team

Where can I find the bonus extras?

The “Extras” folder can be found in your root install directory for the Wing Commander: 35th Anniversary Edition.

Does the game have controller support?

Yes! The Wcdx version of the 35th Anniversary Edition can be played with controllers but may require certain setup depending on your hardware.

We recommend you review the “Controller_Setup_and_Mappings” PDF in the Extras folder for more details and controller mappings.

The Extras folder is located in your root install directory for the game. Please keep in mind certain menus may require special navigation (such as keyboard input) given the legacy UI.

Does the game Autosave my progress?

Unfortunately no, like many games of the era, the game does not have any autosave functionality. Be sure to manually save your game often within the “Barracks”. Select one of the beds to save or load your game. However, the game does feature Cloud Saves to ensure save progress can be continued between devices.

Does the game work on Steam Deck?

The “Wcdx version” of Wing Commander is Steam Deck Playable and should run smoothly on the Steam Deck.

We recommend reviewing the “Controller_Setup_and_Mappings” PDF in the Extras folder, which contains a section about the Steam Deck. The “Extras” folder can be found in your root install directory for the Wing Commander: 35th Anniversary Edition.

Please keep in mind certain menus may require special navigation (such as virtual keyboard input) given the legacy UI. This will be most common in the Player Name and Save / Load menu.

Is there a way to disable the intro videos for the Kilrathi Saga Wcdx versions?

Yes, to disable the intro videos first navigate to your root install directory for the Wing Commander: 35th Anniversary Edition. Then open the “Kilrathi_Saga” folder. In the “Kilrathi_Saga” folder, open “wcdx.ini”.  Within the INI file, set the desired intro video entries to 0 and save the file.

Note: Adjusting INI files may result in game instability.

The game is just too hard, is there anything I can do?

Wing Commander is an incredibly difficult game, and we understand some players may just want to progress easier.  In both the Wcdx and WCAT versions, there are several legacy cheat commands for players to utilize. 

(No judgement, even the development team uses these to play, and in Wcdx we’ve also disabled the legacy “Cheater” moniker the game used to bestow).

Wcdx Version:

In the Wcdx versions, Invulnerability can be activated / deactivated anytime during flight with the hotkey combo “CTRL-P”, or the controller combo LB+RB+ Y / Triangle.  This will persist for the entire play session.

The second is Destroy Target. This mode can be activated / deactivated with the hotkey combo. “CTRL-K”, or the controller combo LB+RB+ B / Circle.  This will persist for the entire play session.

Once active, use the hotkey combo “CTRL-X” or LB+ RSB / R3 to destroy the current target.  Warning, this can also destroy allies so be careful.

WCAT Version:

In the WCAT version, within the WCAT Launcher the cheats can be enabled under the “Set Game Options…” section. There you can set Cheats to be Enabled, along with optional Invulnerability. You may also reduce the amount of Asteroids.

If Cheats are enabled, you can use the hotkey “ALT-Del” to destroy the current target.  More legacy cheats can be found online with the community.

What is the difference between the multiple launch options of the game?

The 35th Anniversary Edition includes several different versions of the game.  You can read more about each version’s history and journey here.

On Steam and the EA App, there are three primary launch options for the game.

“Kilrathi Saga Wcdx” is an enhanced version of the 1996 Kilrathi Saga edition of the game.  Wcdx provides gameplay speed fixes, improved controller support, planetary space backgrounds, optional cheats, windowed mode, and more on top of the original Kilrathi Saga improvements.  The Secret Missions 1 and 2 can also be launched with the improvements of “Kilrathi Saga Wcdx”.

“WCAT” is an enhanced version of the original DOS edition of the game.  WCAT restores the gameplay / audio feel of a 386 PC, with improved controls, difficulty adjustments, and more. The Secret Missions 1 and 2 can be started from within the WCAT Launcher.

The “DOS” version is the classic game running in DOSBox, and is essentially what has been available digitally over the past decade. This version may be difficult to run on modern hardware configurations, and is primarily included for historical and modding purposes.

On GOG the “DOS” version is a separate item in your game library, and should be granted as part of the 35th Anniversary Edition.

Can I adjust the game speed / framerate for the Kilrathi Saga Wcdx version?

Yes, there are two ways to adjust the game speed, which is effectively set by the framerate.  For reference, the default framerate is set to 20.

While in flight, the framerate can be increased or decreased by using the hotkeys ] and [ respectively.[/p]

To adjust the framerate outside the game, navigate to your root Kilrathi_Saga install folder. In the root folder, open “wcdx.ini”.  Within the INI file, set the desired framerate under the following setting:

SpaceFramerate=20

Save the file.  Note: Adjusting INI files may result in game instability.

Please keep in mind, based on our playtesting the game becomes significantly harder as you increase the game speed.

Who worked on the 35th Anniversary Edition?

To see all the community and team members who contributed, please check out in the “35th_Anniversary_Edition_Credits” in the Extras folder. The “Extras” folder can be found in your root install directory for the Wing Commander: 35th Anniversary Edition.

In the Kilrathi Saga Wcdx version, my mouse cursor is lagging in some of the menus, why is this?

Community modders spent months iterating on the mouse input in order to modernize the controls for the flight portion of the Kilrathi Saga Wcdx version.  The result is that we believe the mouse flight is the most usable it’s ever been in Wing Commander.  However, one odd knock-on of this iteration was the occasional laggy mouse in the menus. While we agree this is annoying at times, we hope this doesn’t take away from your overall enjoyment in the game.

My game keeps crashing, what can I do?

We do apologize if the game is unstable on your system.  The honest answer is we did our best to fix as many issues as possible, but some were just too complicated to track down and solve, especially without access to the original source code.  Please report any instability you encounter and this will help in our ongoing efforts.