Wing Commander Arena

Wing Commander Arena is an Xbox Live arcade game based off the Wing Commander space combat franchise. The game is set in 2701 and the player is sent to the Frontier to destroy the remains of the Kilrathi Empire in decay. Unlike the other games in the series, Arena is much more action-oriented with a full focus on the dogfights in space, turning it into an arcade game.

There are 2 different game modes. In the multi-player mode up to 16 players can go free-for-all or play in teams. In one of the game modes, players can organize armadas to attack opposing capital ships. These ships are made up of 3 levels of defence. The player-controlled fighters need to defend their own main ship and attack the enemy capital ship at the same time. After breaking down one level of defence (usually consisting of missiles and turrets), a new level becomes visible, with the third being the bridge, after which the ship is blown up and the game is won. In another game type players defend their satellite in a capture-the-flag mode, or go one-on-one in duels. In the bearpit mode players can watch duels from the sidelines and play mini-games, or shoot at each other or inside the bearpit.

In the single-player mode, there are new ships to unlock through different modes: training levels, melee battles or missions where only asteroids need to be blown up. Players can choose from 18 ships (9 Terran Confederation and 9 Kilrathi), all of which are upgraded versions of ships appearing in earlier Wing Commander titles. Each race has 3 main ships: a light fighter (Arrow/Darket), a heavy fighter (Rapier/Dralthi) and a bomber (Broadsword/Paktahn), with different variations based on the upgrades changing the ships’ design.

Unlike the previous games, the first-person perspective has been traded for a 3rd-person view on a 2D plane, with the third axis only for special maneuvers such as barrel rolls, flips, immelman turns, 180 turns and devices and moves only available for specific ships. There are 8 game maps, leaderboards and achievements. During gameplay, players can collect power-ups that restore the shield or fill up missiles, provide additional damage (hammer shot/cheap shot), or rare items causing wingmen to appear, energy absorption or supershields.