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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Dune (1984) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!
Aug
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Here's one from the depths of Google Groups' Usenet archive: a Wing Commander press release we didn't have preserved! This was posted May 30 1996 to announce the release of Wing Commander IV Macintosh's demo. The Macintosh ports of Wing Commander III and IV are largely forgotten today... we aim to change that!
Wing Commander IV to Release on Macintosh -- Demo Now Available!
Los Angeles, Calif. -- The best is about to get even better. The
interactive movie that was called "the most impressive space adventure
game ever produced" by Universal Press Syndicate is preparing for its
next ground-breaking act as a new Power Macintosh(TM) title. ORIGIN's
Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom(TM) is slated for release for
the Power Macintosh in June.
Already receiving critical acclaim as a PCCD title, Wing Commander IV
will incorporate several hours of live-action video and will feature
many talented actors from the
Aug
…There's a scene in Pilgrim Stars, the first Wing Commander movie tie-in novel, where we see a news broadcast from a hastily-assembled Pilgrim concentration camp. The news chyron identifies the location of the camp as the University of Central Florida. Note that this includes a wonderful example of the 'sci-fi list' trope where one or two future events are included in a list of familiar ones:
Bellegarde now studied the image of a university campus. Ancient brick buildings with signs identifying them as Library, Administration, Biological Sciences, Offworld Sciences, and Humanities and Fine Arts girdled an oval reflection pond about thirty meters across. The caption read: DESIGNATED PILGRIM SAFE ZONE: UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA , EARTH. A half dozen rifle-toting young men sprinted along the pond’s perimeter, with an equal number of Marines in pursuit. The men took up flanking positions near the
Aug
If you were afraid you might have to go a whole month without a GOG discount, worry no longer! The summer sale may be long gone, but the Back to School Sale kicks off today. This means the Wing Commander series is 50% off across the board - just $3 each game!
Aug
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The Wing Commander movie club greatly enjoyed our trip back to 1970 with Apollo 13; it's a movie that comes together so perfectly it feels preordained rather than directed. This week we'll be traveling further into the future for another outer space adventure… but one that's anything but neutral about its director! The next film will be the 1984 version of Dune by David Lynch. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.
A beloved IP meets a director who has his own, distinct vision separate from any of the fans. The results… something no one can quite explain. Am I talking about Wing Commander or Dune? But beyond that similarity, our first in game reference is a pretty clear one: in Privateer when you try to communicate with New Constantinople you can choose a line of Paul's from Dune: "My name is a killing word". Why? It's not entirely clear...
We also recently did a deep dive into
Aug
Display MoreCrack artist ulimann644 is back with two more extremely cool renderings of Wing Commander ships! The first is a scene which uses his previously shown Fralthi model and adds a brand new Drathi to the mix. The second imagines the cover to a Wing Commander story using his Hornet model.
WING COMMANDER - KILRATHI BATTLEGROUP (DeviantArt)
This is my second WING COMMANDER Wallpaper with my FRALTHI-CLASS MESH and my brandnew (delivered on Tuesday) DRATHI-CLASS mesh.
Hope you like it.
Software:
- Lightwave 2024
- Photoshop
- ImageFXWING COMMANDER - OPERATION ENYO (DeviantArt)
This is a virtual WING COMMANDER Cover.
Hope you like it
Credits: All Artwork by me.
Software:
- Lightwave 3D
- Photoshop
- ImageFX
Aug
…Last month we discovered some fascinating trade ads for some of Baen's Wing Commander novels. Next I thought I'd take a look at how Baen advertised the Wing Commander novels in their own books and I found a couple of fun examples that were repeated in dozens of Baen paperbacks in the early 90s. Publishers--especially pulpy ones like Baen--would often fill out the last few page of a paperback with advertisements for other things they published. I was particularly impressed with this advertisement that attempts to explain their philosophy behind publishing computer game tie-in books. Neat description of Wing Commander, too: "The computer game which supplies the background world for these novels is a current all-time bestseller. Fly with the best the Confederation of Earth has to offer against the ferocious catlike alien Kilrathi!"
Here's an advertisement that's a sort of "flow chart" that lets you pick
Aug
We were pleased to see that everyone in last week's Wing Commander movie club enjoyed The Exorcist! As the series goes on we're happy for excuses--however flimsy--to show movies that aren't so bent towards space opera. In lieu of any forced commentary, we are instead going to use this space to introduce the other three movies that are coming from Privateer storyboards: Heaven's Gate, Ishtar and The Last Temptation of Christ! (Though of course Heaven's Gate already earned a slot for being referenced as a star system in Wing Commander II).
Sully really wants split pea soup.
Aug
This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is The Exorcist and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!
Aug
New factions, new system and visual upgrades that push the mod closer to the living, breathing Homeworld-inspired universe I’m building inside Freelancer.
Aug
Here's a story we don't quite know what to do with: we've discovered an interesting "rumor" published in the August 1992 issue of Computer Gaming World. The magazine claims that Dark Horse comics was working on a Wing Commander comic book that would've been written by James Hudnall. Origin certainly wanted to license a Wing Commander comic but this is the first we've ever heard of a publisher or a writer having been involved. Dark Horse still exists today but unfortunately James Hudnall passed way in 2019. We'd certainly love to know more!
Dark Horse Comics, the fast-growing and sometimes iconoclastic comics publisher in the Northwest, is believed to be working with Origin on a Wing Commander comic. James Hudnall, one of the most prolific Dark Horse scripters, will be writing the book.
Aug
Here's a neat memory of Wing Commander III from a celebrity! Elias Toufexis recently tweeted that he remembers playing Wing Commander III as a kid and hoped to act in a game someday… and now he's been in almost one hundred of them!
I played the hell out of the Wing Commander series when I was a kid and I remember specifically thinking to myself “There’s real acting in games now? Maybe I’ll do that one day”
— Elias Toufexis (@EliasToufexis) August 10, 2025
I’ve now acted in or voice directed nearly 100 games. That’s pretty crazy. pic.twitter.com/32GxiZeP9qHe has appeared in everything from Assassin's Creed to the excellent Star Trek: Resurgence. But he's probably best known for his recent role on Star Trek Discovery as Breen prince La'ak.
Aug
…Brewer Corporation has confirmed the overwhelming success of its latest initiative to restock Trailblazer megaships, citing it as the largest single delivery effort in its history with independent pilots transporting more than 1,200,000,000 tonnes of materials.
The campaign followed closely on the heels of two community-led operations that saw the Panther Clipper Mk II heavy freighter enter full-scale production.
Brewer's logistical network, already stretched by unprecedented colonisation projects, received a major boost from the resupply drive, whilst pilots also ensured the resupply routes remained safe from pirate interference across Minerva.
Brewer COO Mark Rennik stated "Never before have we seen such a scale of commitment from the pilot community. This historic achievement not only met our needs, but it also far surpassed them."
The Trailblazer colonisation supply ships, which had
Aug
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Well last week was certainly pretty Excorciting. No? Well, we had a good time. Next week we'll be honoring the recent passing of astronaut Jim Lovell by watching his story in Ron Howard's 1995 Apollo 13. This should be a fun one! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.
It's space history but... how is it Wing Commander? Like Demolition Man, Apollo 13 was a source for temp tracks for the Wing Commander movie. In fact, Chris Roberts used a total of four different tracks from James Horner's score at varying points in the temp score. The first is "Into the LEM" which was used for the moment Paladin presented Tolwyn's ring to Captain Sansky and then again later when Sansky died.
Two tracks, Master Alarm and Manual Burn, were used for the Tiger Claw's big jump scene.
Finally, Re-entry and Splashdown was used for the movie's finale where Blair returns to the Tiger Claw to see Angel rescued.
Where
Aug
…We have some sad news to pass along today: the exOrigin Facebook group reports that veteran Wing Commander artist Craig Halverson has passed away. If Mr. Halverson's name sounds familiar it's because his excellent work graced over a dozen Origin games. We've said before but the 'Origin mystique' made it feel like familiar names like that were part of how you experienced the games. Our condolences go out to his friends and family, we will do our best to preserve his work. If you would like to share any memories we would be happy to publish them in this space.
Craig Halverson joined Origin Systems during its heyday in 1991 and quickly made a name for himself in the burgeoning art group where he worked alongside the likes of Chris Douglas, Beverly Garland, Alan Perez and Paul Steed to create some of Origin's most unique and immersive worlds. Mr. Halverson got his start in the crucible of Chris Roberts'
Aug
Thank you once again for all of the support all year long! There are some amazing things coming in the months ahead, and we'll be here to enjoy them with all of you. Stay tuned for breaking news!
Aug
It's time for a new CIC Birthday Poll! Each year we ask how long folks have been visiting. It's wild that some of us have been reporting the Wing Commander news for almost thirty years now!
The old poll asked about the fabulous sketches in the Kilrathi Saga calendar, which works again for calendar year 2025! December's Strakha art was the clear winner, which is odd, since July's Rigakh is obviously the best!
Aug
FekLeyrTarg once again crafted a fun little scene to help ring in another year of the Wing Commander CIC! The Kilrathi assault is certainly bold, but I think the Paradigm has the definite advantage here. Thank you for all the support over these many years!
This year has been quite intense so unfortunately I didn't have the time for something more ambitious. So I decided to revisit a render I worked on many years ago. It's two Dralthi VIIs ambushing a Paradigm in orbit of a moon. Once again I used the models from the Privateer 3D Archive. The render itself was done in Blender 4.5 with some editing in Adobe Photoshop.
Aug
Would it really be a year in Wing Commander if I didn't have a new spreadsheet for you? This one is intended to help everyone debating on the forums and editing the WCPedia: a complete collection of all the dialogue from all of the Origin FX 'talking head' games. Whether you want the in flight comms from Privateer or the option of comparing the original script across multiple platforms it's all available right here.
Aug
I've been slowly working through the Wing Commander footage to work out what a version of the movie that represents the shooting script and the vision Chris Roberts had in his head when setting out to make the WC movie might have looked like. While this clip isn't polished in the way a theatrical release would be you get a sense of the overall ambition of the project. I think it represents well the overall scope of changes you can expect in nearly every scene once we release a full cut of the movie for everyone to enjoy. Everything in the film is recontextualized and worked to better highlight the various character arcs. I hope you enjoy it.
