Introduction to Wing Commander

Thanks to those out there who pointed out the broken Wing Commander Universe link in the exciting prospects section. The link is fixed, now pointing to the WCU section of the Vega Strike wiki (WCU is a VS mod). The original project page currently serves as the homepage for Privateer Remake which has, as far as I'm aware, been superceeded by Privateer Gemini Gold. PR was created from the WCU codebase and PGG was a fork of PR. It does make sense, I promise.

Privateer is a classic PC game from the mid-90s and was an off-shoot of the Wing Commander series. You play the role of a space merchant and/or mercenary who fights his way across the galaxy in a game where you travel without limits, sometimes following the storyline if you were so inclined.

PGG and WCU development is still very active and there are more WC games expected to be created out of the WCU project. The next PGG release has high-res base backgrounds, more graphics, more balancing, and lots of bug fixes so look out for it.

Those interested in Wing Commander may be interested in Wing Commander Pioneer, a freeware game still in development by some of the prominent modellers of the WC fan community. It won't be released any time soon but the models and teaser screenshots are very nice.

Privateer was revolutionary and one of the best gaming experiences I ever had. Origin (now defunct) had a habit of doing this - think of the long-running Ultima games. I will do a Free Software perspective on them some day.