[Bandit LOAF]

Chris Roberts' Cloud Imperium Games held a special event to allow fans to play the first five hours of Squadron 42 this past weekend an then followed their great reports on the state of the game by releasing an astounding new trailer and announcing that it would be available on Steam! Check it out:

I'm very happy to see the game coming together on Chris' terms! It may not be Wing Commander, but Squadron 42 really does look like the next best thing. And there was at least one big, fun nod to the classic in the trailer where the lead character looks to have blue hair just like the player character in the original Wing Commander games!





The original Wing Commander uses black and dark blue pixels to show detail in black hair with its 256-color pallette, a common animation technique. For whatever reason, though, this specific usage became a running joke in 1990 with players naming the protagonist 'Bluehair'. The Wing Commander II team then started calling him 'Arturo Bluehair' internally, for "Our Hero Blue Hair". When the series went to full motion video, the last name was kept!

This stunning shot also seems like a nod to Wing Commander; specifically, a combination of the game winning flag raising and the distinctive The Secret Missions cutscene showing the wreckage of the Goddard colony.





It's probably not a coincidence that these two shots were also referenced in the set of sketches made for the Wing Commander movie intro!





This one is more tenuous but the scenes of the games' pilots starting their career in a ceremony in a Pearl Harbor-style outdoor location reminds me so much of the intended introduction for the Wing Commander movie which featured sailors playing on a tropical beach before the camera panned up to reveal they were actually in an artificial environment inside an asteroid. The scene was cut for budget but Chris Roberts tried hard to add it back during post production. Sadly, he couldn't get the financing needed.





And a final personal one for me is seeing how cool it is that they're integrating FPS combat in a narrative space game. When Chris Reid and I visited Digital Anvil as teenagers in early 1999, Eric Peterson gave us a demo of the then-in-development StarLancer and talked all about how they were already planning to have ship boarding and planet missions in the sequel. It took a little longer than anticipated, but we got there! Pictured: Origin also had an FPS project at the time called Hazardous Duty around that time which had a playable pitch demo.





You can watch the original pitch for Hazardous Duty (with a little Quake-engine gameplay) here:

Squadron 42 is set to ship Q2 2027. Almost here!

--
Original update published on October 14, 2026

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Yes! The Bluehair connection immediately struck me when watching the trailer, I found it to be a very nice nod.

 

[MartySheen]

Do you know if there will be physical editions for early backers? I heard a few rumors. I backed the project in 2012. Things are looking good

 

[Col.SE-mACE 59]

Mark Hamil - John Rhys Davis ..
A amazing Trailer
I really hope this game will be successful. In general, it would be great to see a comeback for sci-fi blockbuster space games 🖤

 

[Whiplash]

I'm really happy to see all the positive feedback from the playtesters. With the time and budget taken, critics will be especially harsh on any perceived flaws. This launch needs to be pretty much perfect. Either way, I can't wait to finally play the game!

 

[MadMac_5]

I want it to be good, and fun to play, but watching that trailer all I could keep thinking was how all of the variations in gameplay from "go on a mission in your fighter" have kept the game from being released well over a decade ago. Walking around on a planet looking for someone like it's a Mass Effect game? That's not what I was hoping for in 2012! Seeing a clip of your character going to the gym and pulling the weights off the rack? Cool, but does it really improve things?

I've been getting e-mail updates since the initial campaign, and every time the progress has been reported as "The AI team has now made it so that NPCs can get food, eat, and then go put their trash in the garbage and trays on the rack" all I could think was "This is scope creep that makes Duke Nukem Forever look like a well-managed project."

If this all somehow comes together into a cohesive whole, I'll gladly play and enjoy it. But, HOO-BOY is there a lot stacked against this game from the beginning! The 90 minute prologue we saw a couple of years ago is already something I'm kind of dreading; I just want to get in my ship and start blasting enemies, and have some story in between missions!

 

[MartySheen]

A Chris Roberts game taken to the extreme. A summer blockbuster movie that contains a space sim/action game within. A space shooter with a movie attached to it. Whatever way you want to put it. Very old school. Very linear. This kind of thing hasn't been seen since the mid 90s. What will the world of 2027 think of it?

Anyone who has played Wing Commander 4 will have a good idea what to expect, only on a much grander scale and with top notch graphics and tech. If the gameplay is good, it will likely be one of the best games of its kind ever made. What did Paladin say? I canna' tell you how much Im lookin forward to it. Id post a screen of that if I had a little more time

 

[Evan]

Oh man, ten years ago, I was pretty much on board and still a PC gamer. Now I don't even have a single modern Windows PC anymore to play this on.

Presentation-wise it does look good. But I still can't figure out how the gameflow will be and if all the added gameplay elements will really make this better or just more bloated.

But it's a nice trailer and I will be happy when it finally releases. After all this time, it better be free of major bugs and optimized, though ,

 

[Whiplash]

A Chris Roberts game taken to the extreme. A summer blockbuster movie that contains a space sim/action game within. A space shooter with a movie attached to it. Whatever way you want to put it. Very old school. Very linear. This kind of thing hasn't been seen since the mid 90s. What will the world of 2027 think of it?

Anyone who has played Wing Commander 4 will have a good idea what to expect, only on a much grander scale and with top notch graphics and tech. If the gameplay is good, it will likely be one of the best games of its kind ever made. What did Paladin say? I canna' tell you how much Im lookin forward to it. Id post a screen of that if I had a little more time

That's pretty much my take as well, but instead of watching cut-scenes of the in between bits, you get to play them. You can roam the decks of your carrier freely, talk to whoever you want, and participate in the FPS action instead of just escorting drop ships full of Marines to do the shooty bits. Of course the flying part is still there and hopefully better than ever, but it's no longer the only playable part of the game.