On the fringe of Human space, near the Kilrathi border, the industrial machine is running full-tilt to feed the war effort, and there is a lot of shipping... and a lot of pirates... and Retros (fanatical religious nuts who wants to destroy technology), military, militia, merchants, mercenaries, and privateers. In the darkness, a battle between ships has woken up something ancient... Something powerful... Something... deadly.

You are a privateer. Start with the lowly scout, and upgrade to one of the three other superior ships: Galaxy (superior cargo space), Orion (superior protection), or Centurion (superior offense). Buy optional equipment such as armor, engines, shields, weapons, launchers for torpedoes/missiles, and MUCH MUCH more. Take on missions (multiple sources, from the cheapest mission computer, to fixers who has the toughest but most rewarding missions) and earn money for upgrades. Use spare cargo room to trade commodities to further add to your account. Missions can vary from search and destroy to Fedex (i.e. delivery) to bounty hunting, and more.

Privateer is set in the Wing Commander universe, but is more of a free-form game similar to Elite. While there is a central plot, you can deviate from it somewhat and you can continue playing after you finish the main plot. It also has the infamous talking heads dialog Origin pioneered in Wing Commander, this time with higher resolution and more natural look, and still has the lip-sync.

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Alternate Titles

"Trade Commander" -- working title

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Part of the Following Groups

Merchant	Title
	Wing Commander: Privateer
	Wing Commander: Privateer
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User Reviews

Despite some mild flaws, an absolutely superb game that everyone should try	dogwank (5)
One wonders why Privateer 2 was a step backward from this classic.	Chockydonutman (5)
The definitive space mercenary experience.... man, I LOVE this game!	Zovni (8824)
Best game I've ever played, period.	Cyric (50)	unrated
Total Freedom! Choose your career. Make your own destiny.	Jesse French (2)	unrated
Over all the game rocks	Lord Dragon (3)
General Review	Chad Henshaw (34)
A fine "Elite" derivative, with all the WC flavor intact	Kasey Chang (3719)	unrated
I'll slow roast your (g)uts!	Shiek of Geek (27)
A must-see game	Patrick McCarron (6)	unrated

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The Press Says

PC Player (Germany)	Apr, 1995	85 out of 100	85
Svenska Hemdatornytt	Nov, 1993		83
Top Secret	Feb, 1994	7 out of 10	70

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Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
disk 5	1	John Sheehy Dec 17, 2007

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Trivia

According to an early Origin press release the player character (brownhair)'s name is Grayson Burrows.

Also the game was originally to be called Trade Commander.

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This entry to the MobyGames database was contributed by IJan (1992) on Dec 22, 1999.