Display MoreWe've got a pretty cool discovery today: a YouTube account has uploaded a very early trailer for Wing Commander Prophecy! It has some spectacular footage of the game's engine much earlier in development, more than we've seen before. It's not clear where this was originally published but we suspect it dates to around E3 1997, possibly included in a press kit and released with an overseas magazine.
The resolution is low (it's from 1997!) but there are some good looks at Prophecy's early light including an early version of the Midway, early asteroids, a fascinating not-seen-before version of the UI and even an unreleased destroyer-style capital ship briefly visibile!
Thanks to some help from the original uploader we've learned the source of this trailer: the December 1997 cover disc for a Russian gaming magazine called Gameland. Gameland published extensive Prophecy previews in their November and January issue which both used extensive material from an early press kit... that's likely where this version of the trailer came from, too! We've tracked down the source file and added a copy of it to our to our Wing Commander Prophecy Holovids archive. You can see a much later version of the Prophecy trailer which was released in September 1997 for the European Computer Trade Show (ECTS) here. The Gameland issues with cool Prophecy layouts can be found below:
Gameland, November 1997
Gameland, January 1998
