Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter

About Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter

Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter (1997) is Totally Games' third X-Wing game, the only one built primarily for multiplayer, with up to eight pilots in free-for-all, team and co-operative battles.

Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter in Depth

The third X-Wing game brought several technical advances over the original releases of its predecessors: it runs on Windows, requires a joystick, has a CD audio soundtrack, supports high-resolution graphics and adds texture mapping to the ship models in flight. Its multiplayer supports up to eight players in free-for-all, team-based and co-operative modes, and a pilot and mission selection system tracks each player's points and awards. As well as choosing a craft, players pick their squadron, and so their combat role, for each mission.

Everything could be played alone, but it is the only game in the series designed primarily for multiplayer, and it had no story-driven campaign. Delivering satisfying online play was a huge technical challenge: unlike Doom or Descent, set in closed rooms and corridors where players know little of each other unless they meet, its open deep-space setting required far more data to be tracked and sent between players. Edge gave it 90 out of 100, saying LucasArts had "finally listened to its legions of fans" and that it was "practically impossible" for such a game to fail, though it questioned what it offered players without a network.

Making Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter

Totally Games developed it for LucasArts, which released it for Windows in 1997. Criticism of its thin single-player content led Totally Games to create the Balance of Power expansion, which added story campaigns and further multiplayer features.