Star Wars X-Wing Alliance Upgrade: Make old new again, because it’s not like we’ve had a choice.
- T.J. "Millie" Archer
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
I can’t believe they’re letting me write about this. This is still one of the best mods ever made for any game and the developer’s 26-year grind on it is legendary. It has earned its place as a mandatory add-on for the base X-Wing Alliance game and should be the first thing you download when you reinstall this game for the modern day.
X-Wing Alliance itself is arguably still the pinnacle of the LucasArts X-Wing series. Though perhaps not as strong in the storytelling and atmosphere department as TIE Fighter, it takes X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and bolts on everything that makes an epic Star Wars space battle complete.
With the ability to fly dozens of fully modeled ships from the Star Wars universe during the OT era (The best era. Fight me.), it truly shines in its customization and the ability to effectively pit you and a bunch of your friends in the middle of a fleet battle or a huge multi dozen fighter dog fight through its Flight Simulator feature. Anyone that grew up during the golden age of these LucasArts masterpieces probably lament the loss of their gameplay style as the years went on.
To make matters worse, as PC gaming evolved and copyrights were shifted around, it became harder and harder to play these old games. There were no legal alternatives to downloading the game unless you had one of the old CD sets the game originally released on. And God help you if you tried to install it on anything after Windows XP. But as unofficial patches and workarounds were developed, the game was able to be played again, and with the release of the game, patched and functional on GOG and later Steam, we were no longer shackled by an outdated optical storage medium.
A little extra background is probably in order. It would behoove anyone that has PC to attempt playing any one of the X-Wing series games. They’re a lesson in non-Newtonian, energy management flight game design that stands as a benchmark to space sim development to this day. It is actually quite easy to pick up and it is one of the few series I think can be played without throttle control successfully and in some cases ideally with easy throttle and weapons selection hotkeys. Mission design is varied, but straightforward and feels faithful to the elegant simplicity of the Star Wars universe.
This control scheme carries over from game to game. I actually sort of lament the fact that Star Wars Squadrons didn’t bring forward the default rudder-to-roll/bank-to-yaw control set since it would have been a contemporary translation to the X-Wing Series for the modern day.
But if you play the game today, you quickly realize how much it’s graphics have aged. X-Wing Alliance came off of a legacy of DOS-rendered low polygon counts and Gourad shading, and there was clearly a desire to keep the game as accessible as possible for lower powered computers. With today’s 4K HDR, CUDA-cored, Ryzen fueled desktops, the graphics are perhaps not as engaging as they once were.
But pop XWA Upgrade on, and… WOW.
Look, it’s not Squadrons, but it’s solid. The rough angles and simple textures are gone. Replaced by beveling and real shading.
I can only let the game speak for itself:
This upgrade’s goals were FAR reaching. This was not just an in-engine upgrade. The team went so far as to upgrade every tiny part of the game. Just about every in-game menu, navigation map, and animation has been upscaled and reanimated to fit a modern aspect ratio and resolution.
Praise also needs to be laid on the installation process; just about every little thing is accounted for with a set of quality-of-life tools like the Craft Manager that lets you customize the paint schemes and models used for ships in the game. Or Babu Frik’s configurator, which can apply a series of hacks to customize the game’s rendering and effects to better tune for a modern computer.
Wait… What’s that?
Yep. We’ve already brought this into the 21st century. But it’s not exactly a default option, and you may need to get hooks installed to make it work. I wish I could review this part of the game, but I was unable to get my VR headset to work for this review, though it does state it works with SteamVR so it should have wide compatibility, regardless of my own PSVR2 hackyness.
But wait, there’s more! It’s not compatible with the 2024 version, but the XWA Upgrade acts as the building blocks of just about any modern XWA modification, including the outstanding TIE Fighter Total Conversion mod, which brings the entirety of the TIE Fighter Campaign into the game near flawlessly.
And they’re STILL going at it. This mod is still in development. With their well-outlined goal of updating every model the game presents. They’ve even given a bonus of adding a new ship here or there, including the U-Wing and the VCX-100 freighter.
It’s so refreshing to be able to gush about something that’s still this great and accessible. With X-Wing Alliance fully available on GOG and Steam, I insist that anyone with even a passing interest in the Star Wars universe treat themselves to this gem.
About the Writer
T.J. "Millie" Archer
A Life-long realist and aviation enthusiast. Once the co-founding Administrator of the Electrosphere.info English Ace Combat Database. In the present day, he is freelance, roving the internet in search of the latest aviation news and entertainment. Read Staff Profile.
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