Lucasfilm and parent company Disney need to get their act together and bring back the amazing video game X-Wing Alliance, either as a remaster, a sequel, or a reboot. And no, we don’t mean that Electronic Arts, simplified arcade stuff in the Battlefront games. We want what LucasArts did so well with in the ’90s, the type of games everyone can agree deserve awards recognition at the end of the year.
Full disclaimer, I am the world’s greatest TIE Interceptor pilot. If you’ve ever checked my Twitter bio or author page over the last decade you’d know this. Or maybe you actually played the greatest Star Wars game ever, X-Wing Alliance, back in 1999 or in the years after on the MSN Gaming Zone before it shut down in 2006 and lost to me. Remember that?
If you don’t, you missed out, but trust us when we say X-Wing Alliance is a wonderfully expansive Star Wars space sim. It was the successor to X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, the game that merged together and added multiplayer to the award-winning X-Wing and TIE Fighter games of the early ’90s developed by LucasArts.
X-Wing Alliance was like an esports game before there were esports. The community created all sorts of clans like you see in MMOs, some so big they had their own sub-clans or squadrons and hosted their own tournaments. Then all the clans battled monthly, tracking their stats online on services like Battlestats. Wow, do we feel old.
Anyway, I was (and am) the Kylo Ren, the Anakin Skywalker, the Wedge Antilles of that game when it comes to 1v1 combat in the TIE Interceptor, but we’re not hear to share fun facts. It’s May the 4th and the only way the 4th… force can really be with us is if Lucasfilm brings back this franchise. Bring back the X-Wing and/or TIE Fighter series or better yet, start by remastering X-Wing Alliance. This masterpiece could even work on consoles, following the mold of Elite Dangerous which works great with a controller as it does with a mouse and keyboard.
X-Wing: Alliance and its predecessors are available on GOG but require a joystick and do not support multiplayer. Still, this one is still a must-play for its story and memorable characters - including another lovable droid for the franchise. You even get to participate in the Battle of Endor against the second Death Star. In multiplayer, players can add fleets of opponents and even setup their own custom missions against AI. It was ahead of its time and certainly better than what we’ve gotten from the brand in the last decade.
Oddly enough, an awesome-looking X-Wing style standalone space game was pitched to EA after they acquired the 10-year license to Star Wars games but it never came to be. Instead, they went with loot boxes, disappointing Battlefront games, and an Amy Hennig game they canned. Still, there are other EA Star Wars games in development and we could see a few soon at E3 2018. And then there’s the rumor that Disney and Lucasfilm could be seeking other developers/publishers for additional Star Wars games.
As the gaming industry shifts towards digital, we’re seeing the successful trend of classic franchises getting old installments re-released. Backwards compatibility is a big selling point of the Xbox One and look at the success of the re-release of Shadow of the Colossus and the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. Even Spyro is coming back!
