Wing Commander game series
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Production of the games of the Wing Commander franchise began in 1990 and is currently on hiatus. The last game to enter the series was a Gameboy Advance version of Wing Commander: Prophecy. Due to the lack of official games, fan productions continue to be released at a slow rate.
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[edit] Wing Commander (1990)
The player begins his tour of duty as a young officer on the carrier TCS Tiger's Claw. Through his heroic efforts, the Confederation is able to destroy the Kilrathi's sector headquarters and drive them from the Vega sector.
Through the course of the Vega campaign, the player can gain numerous promotions and medals and fly in various squadrons, each featuring a different fighter. The game was notable for its innovative and seldom-repeated "campaign tree" structure, whereby the "path" you took on the way to the end would be determined by your performance on preceding missions. In-game cinematics in "newsreel" format reflected the success or failure of the player and the Claw. However, in an infamous design decision, Roberts included an incredibly hard mission along the "victory" track which required you to protect a captured Kilrathi destroyer from four Gratha heavy fighters. Even though it is possible to win the mission, it is prohibitively difficult. Since that mission was a critical victory condition for that system, the player would almost always wind up on the losing path after, although the game gives one last chance to return to the winning path afterwards. Consistent victory in that mission (Kurosawa 2) is often taken as a mark of an excellent player in this game. Since the missions in the following Rostov sequence are relatively easy (that is to say, difficult but quite winnable), this is not particularly problematic for any player who has penetrated this far into the game.
Originally announced as Squadron, the name was changed to Wingleader shortly into development; however, trademark issues forced a name change to Wing Commander at the last moment. The dev team's nickname for the otherwise-unnamed protagonist was "Bluehair," due to his unusual shade of hair. Perhaps in a nod to this little in-joke, when the character was given an actual name in later installments, Origin chose "Blair," a shortened version of the old nickname.
Wing Commander was ported to the SNES, Sega CD, Macintosh, Amiga CD32, 3DO, Amiga, FM Towns and Sony PSP systems, the most ports of any Wing Commander game.
In 1991, Wing Commander won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1990.
[edit] The Secret Missions (1990 expansion)
A new Kilrathi secret weapon destroys the Terran colony of Goddard. In retribution, the Confederation plans a daring raid, Operation Thor's Hammer. Tiger's Claw must follow the Kilrathi deep into their own territory and destroy their new super weapon, the dreadnaught Sivar.
The Secret Missions was ported to the FM Towns and SNES, and was included with Wing Commander I and Secret Missions II on the Macintosh as "Super Wing Commander."
[edit] The Secret Missions 2: Crusade (1991 expansion)
When the Confederation is just celebrating a new alliance with the bird-like native species of the planet Firekka, they learn that entire fleets of Kilrathi ships are leaving from other sectors and heading towards the Firekka system.
Puzzled, the Confederation ships must retreat, but they soon learn from a Kilrathi defector that Firekka has been chosen as the place for a holy Kilrathi ceremony. The Confederation soon develops a plan to disrupt that ceremony to deliver a blow to enemy morale and it's up to the Tiger's Claw's pilots to ensure the success of the mission.
The Secret Missions 2: Crusade was ported to the FM Towns.
[edit] Super Wing Commander (1994)
In 1994, a revamped version of the original Wing Commander was released for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. It featured new graphics, full speech and replaced the Secret Missions 2 campaign with an alternate series, a follow up to Thor's Hammer in which the Claw destroys the Kilrathi shipyards that constructed the Sivar. Because of the full speech the player character is named "Armstrong" (even though the same year's Wing Commander III would see the character named "Christopher Blair"). Rather than being 3-D models of the spaceships seen in Wing Commander I, and because SWC was a side project, the spaceships were reused models from the previous year's Wing Commander Armada and Wing Commander Privateer.
Super Wing Commander was ported to the Macintosh and Sony PlayStation.
[edit] Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi (1991)
Shortly after the Firekka campaign, the Tiger's Claw attempts to attack the Kilrathi headquarters in the Enigma sector, but is ambushed by new Kilrathi Strakha stealth fighters and is lost. No one but Blair sees these fighters, so they are dismissed as an excuse to cover his cowardice. He is scapegoated for the loss of the Claw, is demoted and transferred to a backwater space station.
Ten years later, he is called back into action when he is able to save the Confederation's flagship, the TCS Concordia. Meeting many old friends there, he continues the fight against the Kilrathi, finally culminating in the destruction of their sector HQ, the clearing his name and the uncovering of a traitor on the Concordia's flight decks.
Wing Commander II was ported to the FM Towns. In 1992, it won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1991.
[edit] Special Operations 1 (1991 expansion)
Blair is transferred to the undercover Special Operations division, supporting Kilrathi colonies that are defecting from the Empire. But first he must solve the problem of a mutiny on a Confed cruiser.
[edit] Special Operations 2 (1992 expansion)
Jazz, the traitor from Wing Commander II, has fled imprisonment and the Mandarin (the society of traitors) are also able to steal some of the Confederation's newest top-secret fighters. Blair must hunt them down and face Jazz in one final showdown.
[edit] Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (1994)
The war is going badly for the Confederation. Battles are lost on all fronts and the Concordia is destroyed. Colonel Christopher Blair (the player from the first games, now with a set name), is transferred to the TCS Victory, an old ship from the first days of the war.
In a last-ditch attempt to win the war, Confed has designed the TCS Behemoth, a doomsday weapon able to destroy an entire planet. It is Blair's mission to help end this war for good, by destroying the Kilrathi homeworld of Kilrah. Unfortunately the Behemoth is destroyed by Kilrathi forces. The enemy fighters seemed to know exactly about the weakpoints of the weapon. Later on Blair finds out that his old friend Hobbes, a Kilrathi defector, is a sleeper agent and the traitor responsible for the Confeds' losses.
The last hope of winning the war for the Confederation is a secret weapon, the "temblor bomb", using the tectonic instability of Kilrah to destroy the planet. Blair is finally able to attack Kilrah, firing the bomb and destroy the Kilrathi homeworld. With the royal family of Kilrah killed and their homeworld lost, Melek, once attaché to the Kilrathi prince, surrenders before Blair.
Starring in the video sequences are well-known actors like Mark Hamill (as Blair), John Rhys-Davies, Thomas F. Wilson and Malcolm McDowell.
Wing Commander III was ported to the Sony PlayStation, Macintosh and 3DO.
[edit] Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom (1996)
The war with the Kilrathi is over, but not all is well within in the Confederation. Skirmishes in the Border Worlds destroy ships regularly. Both Confed and the Union of Border Worlds assign blame to each other and the skirmishes threaten to lead to all-out war.
Blair is soon recalled to active duty and sent to the Border Worlds to confirm Confed's determination. But he finds out that a conspiracy of war-mongers with members in the highest Confed circles are responsible for the attacks. Defecting to the Border Worlds, Blair must expose the conspiracy to help restore the peace in a galaxy still torn over the events of the Kilrathi-Terran War.
The Price of Freedom retained the storytelling-style of its predecessor, using live-action (filmed) cutscenes with an ensemble cast of actors. Many of the actors from Wing Commander III returned to reprise their roles. The story's final sequence was innovative in that dialogue choices made by the player affected the outcome of the hearing. However, only three endings were possible, and two of the outcomes depended on the earlier choices made by the player.
Wing Commander IV was ported to the Sony PlayStation and Macintosh. To owners of the original MS-DOS version, Origin made available a Windows95 DirectX port, free of charge.
[edit] Wing Commander: Prophecy (1997)
Peace has finally come to the Confederation, or so it seems. Still remaining vigilant, they commission the new megacarrier TCS Midway, which is soon needed when Kilrathi worlds are attacked by an enemy whose coming was foretold in ancient Kilrathi prophecies.
The insectoid enemy, codenamed the Nephilim, soon begin attacking Confed space and the Midway is called in to stop their advance. As young hotshot pilot Lance Casey, the player must fight their organic ships to help destroy the wormhole they used to enter Kilrathi space, thereby halting the invasion, at least for a while.
Starring in the video sequences are actors like Mark Hamill (as Blair) and Thomas F. Wilson (as Maniac).
Prophecy was ported to the Game Boy Advance.
[edit] Wing Commander: Secret Ops (1998)
The Nephilim return, this time much closer to Earth. Transferred to the cruiser TCS Cerberus, Casey and his wingmates must repel the invasion once again.
Secret Ops was an experiment in game distribution. It was at first only available as a free download. In regular intervals, new episodes were released, each featuring several new missions with the storyline told through in-game cutscenes. The game was later available in a collection together with Prophecy, and sold as Prophecy Gold. The storyline was left unfinished though, due to the closing of Origin by Electronic Arts.
[edit] Spin-Offs
[edit] Wing Commander Academy (1993)
A game where the player could build his own missions using ships from Wing Commander II.
[edit] Wing Commander Armada (1994)
Armada featured both an action and a strategy game mode and several multiplayer options.
Armada was ported to the PC9821 and FM Towns.
[edit] Proving Grounds (1994 expansion)
This add-on for Armada added numerous new features such as a new "arcade"-mode with powerups, radar-obscuring asteroids, and several new multiplayer options, including IPX.
[edit] The Kilrathi Saga (1996 recompilation)
Kilrathi Saga was a retooling of the first three Wing Commander Games (Wing Commander, Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi, and Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger), fixing some bugs and adjusting the speed to run on the early Pentium processors of the time.
Kilrathi Saga also featured complete digital re-orchestrations of the original two soundtracks by George Oldziey.
The production run was quite limited, and today Kilrathi Sagas fetch exorbitant sums on eBay.
[edit] Wing Commander: Privateer (1993)
Set in the border regions of Confederation space, the player takes control of a privateer (in Wing Commander, a "privateer" is a mercenary spacer akin to Star Wars's smuggler, Han Solo) who may profit by trading, performing various missions, or pirating. Meanwhile, an ancient alien spaceship has been awakened and is on the loose, attacking ships at random, and the player-controlled privateer may be the Confederation's only hope in defeating it. The major benefit this game had when it came out was its outstanding degree of liberty. While there was a main storyline, the plot was more of an optional element than anything else.
[edit] Righteous Fire (1994 expansion)
When the player's priceless Steltek Gun is stolen, he embarks on a quest that will bring him into conflict with the Luddite-like Church of Man and their shady leader, Mordecai Jones.
[edit] Privateer 2: The Darkening (1996)
Cargo ship "Canera" is attacked during landing and crashes into Mendra City, planet Crius. One survivor. As Lev Arris, a man with no memory of who he is and no record of his existence prior to two weeks before the crash, the player must take the life of a privateer in the Tri-System, finding out about his past along the way.
Although The Darkening features no obvious connection with the "mainstream" Wing Commander series, there are several links that bind it to the larger universe. The game features references to a "Confederation", and one of the easter egg derelicts is a Talon light fighter. Perhaps anticipating a future title connecting The Darkening with Wing Commander, the game's developers set the plot sufficiently far in the "future", in the year 2790.
The game features live-action video directed by Erin Roberts. The cast included Clive Owen, John Hurt, Christopher Walken, Brian Blessed, David Warner and Jürgen Prochnow (the latter two would go on to appear as other characters in the Wing Commander movie).
[edit] Cancelled Games
[edit] Privateer 3
Privateer 3: Retribution did the rounds on computer gaming magazines, where early artwork was shown. A script was donated by former Origin employee Mark Vittek, who was heavily involved in the project, to a popular fan site known as the Wing Commander CIC [1]. The script follows yet another main character as the Privateer, but also features a lot of Wing Commander continuity - Black Lances (WC4), Doctor Severin, Nephilim Stingrays (WC:P) and the like. It was written in late 1997 for a post-Wing Commander Prophecy project that was developed and then cancelled in 1998. Interestingly, the script includes a full budget for a film shoot and 3D renderings of various 'base' locations which would appear in the game.
[edit] Wing Commander Online / Privateer Online
After the completion of Wing Commander Secret Ops in the fall of 1998, Origin's Maverick team toyed with several ideas to continue the franchise - Wing Commander: Strike Team, the next game in the series, an unnamed multiplayer game where players could play as a team, Privateer 3 and others. After several false starts, they began Wing Commander Online. Work had just begun on this project in 1998; proposals had been written and concept art was being done.
Then came the Wing Commander Movie in March 1999. Whether or not the fact that the movie's release coincide's with changes at Origin is a coincidence or not is unknown. We do know that Origin layed off the remaining members of the Maverick team and Electronic Arts transferred Wing Commander's patron, OSI President Neil Young, off to another post in March, 1999. Hope was lost. EA's fiscal year also ends in March, and each year current projects are reevaluated.
But it didn't end there. In the months following the movie, Origin shocked us all by rehiring much of its former talent to work on Privateer Online. Several variations were considered - including a game that had no space combat whatsoever, essentially Ultima Online in the future (or Star Wars Galaxies in its current incarnation).
But again, things fell apart. Origin re-evaluated their business plan in early 2000, and decided to focus only on online titles. Origin had a set budget made for the year and Earth & Beyond was now in development as a "competing" massively multiplayer space sim. Resources were scarce and they needed to fund the fledgling Ultima Online 2.0. They fired or reassigned the artists and programmers working on Privateer Online, and cancelled the project once again. No 'good' reason was ever given for the sudden animosity towards their former money-making line, but speculation would indicate that the problems follow the failure of the Wing Commander Movie at the box office and Electronic Arts' lack of faith in a Chris Roberts-less (the creator of the series) Wing Commander product.
A member of the Wing Commander CIC fan site [[2]] got a chance to see some of the work that had been done on Privateer Online several days after Origin cancelled the project. The ground elements were similar to the 3D engine of Ultima Ascension. Some promotional artwork had been done, featuring various Prophecy era ships. The various Privateer ships were 'modular' 3D models - upgrading your guns or your engines would change the look of your ship in space. No one seemed to have much hope that the project would be continued.
