Wing Commander: Privateer

aka: Trade Commander
Moby ID: 611
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Description official descriptions

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 - but also a lot of pirates, Retros (religious fanatics who want to destroy technology), military, militia, merchants, mercenaries, and privateers. In the darkness, a battle between ships has woken up something ancient, powerful, and deadly.

Wing Commander: Privateer is a space trading and combat simulation. The player assumes the role of 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 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 the account. Missions can vary from search and destroy to Fedex (i.e. delivery) to bounty hunting, and more.

The game is set in the Wing Commander universe, but is more of a free-form game similar to Elite. While there is a central plot, the player can deviate from it somewhat and can continue playing the game after completing the main story missions.

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Credits (DOS version)

58 People (44 developers, 14 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 80% (based on 16 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 83 ratings with 14 reviews)

This one is a blast and a good way to explore the Wing Commander universe.

The Good
The two things I loved the most was the ability to break away from the plot to explore around and run random missions, and upgrading/buying your ship. It was always nice to make a bunch for bounty hunter runs or a little pirating to gain some extra credits without sacrificing the plot; you could pick it up where you left off. Also, being able to buy better equipment, weapons, and such for your ship gave a lot of incentive for making those extra runs. It also made flying a "hunk of junk" a little more interesting in the beginning.

The Bad
There were a few silly missions you had to complete for the plot to continue. The most annoying one was the dash you made from the alien ship to a confed base with the egg chasing you through the various asteroid fields. It was obviously doable, but annoying all the same to be running full speed through asteroid field through asteroid field.

The Bottom Line
It's an excellent diversion from the Wing Commander game without leaving the universe. You can follow the plot or go off and be a merchant, pirate, and/or bounty hunter......or do any combination thereof whenever you wanted to. You still have the Kilrathi to contend with from time to time while you are working your way through the plot. I felt it was a very refreshing perspective of the WC universe.

DOS · by Spectre (126) · 2000

Good, but not Great

The Good
The gameplay is immersive. This is one of the few games where it's more fun to avoid the main plot and just concentrate on exploring, trading, and upgrading your ship. Getting to play blockade runner with a hold full of illegal drugs by dive-bombing a planet on full-afterburner with a half-dozen confed ships on your tail is still possibly the most fun ever offered up in a WC game. Plus the idea of being able to switch "sides" at will between several competing groups is nice - it's theoretically possible to be allied to the pirates, the Kilrathi, and Confed all at once. And the music was some of the best MIDI work they had.

The Bad
The gameplay is blatantly ripped from Elite. I'm still amazed David Brabden didn't sue Origin - every aspect of the game EXCEPT the plotline is straight out of that classic, even down to most of the specific items you can trade in. Also, it got mind-bogglingly difficult towards the end of the plotline, with missions that took more than an hour to complete and far more bad guys than was really necessary. (and the add-on mission pack took that difficulty and upped it further. I know VERY few people who managed to complete it.)

The Bottom Line
Want to play Elite 3.0? Here ya go. Skip the plotline and just explore.

DOS · by WizardX (116) · 2000

A fine "Elite" derivative, with all the WC flavor intact

The Good
The open-ended game with a plot that you can choose to follow, plenty of combat, plenty of trade commodities, plenty of weapon upgrades, multiple ships to choose from, random contracts

The Bad
A bit TOO repetitive at times, not enough "special missions" or surprises, no multiplayer (this would have been the ULTIMATE massive online RPG!), money easy to come by once you have enough capital

The Bottom Line
Privateer is Wing Commander's interpretation of Elite, the open-ended space combat/trading game.

Start with a small scout, the Tarsus, carry commodities from port to port to build up your capital, buy low and sell high. Upgrade your ship with better equipment, weapons, engines, and shields, even replace your ship with a better one! Make your way around the sector and discover adventure you never imagined... Choose multiple career paths... Be trader, smuggler, pirate, bounty hunter, or mercenary... The choice is yours! Take on contracts from multiple sources. Go to multiple types of planets (some systems have more than one) each with different amount of certain commodities for sale and want to buy. Once you get into the plot, enjoy certain special missions.

The graphics engine is an improved version of WC2 bitmap 3D engine with higher resolution and better displays and is quite adequate, providing good frame rates while having enough details. Sound is your typical excellent for Wing Commander series. The in-between mission briefing is your Origin "talking head" briefing similar to Strike Commander's interface, complete with "fixers".

The game was probably the most fun of all the WC games to play due to the open-ended nature of the universe. You can truly decide your destiny in this game, something that wasn't possible since.

DOS · by Kasey Chang (4598) · 2001

[ View all 14 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
disk 5 John Sheehy Dec 17, 2007

Trivia

Ending

When you finish the game, your character was having a conversation with the admiral... Then all of a sudden they started talking back and forth about the game and its creators!

Hidden game

There is a hidden text adventure. Information on how to access it can be found in the hint section.

Manual

Although Privateer's player's guide was quite run-of-the-mill compared to other Origin game manuals it did come with a short story. The Frontiersman: Interview With A Privateer was the account of an interview conducted to our very own Brownhair (with all names changed to protect the innocent, of course) and which told us his story to the point were he sets sail to the Gemini sector. The story also explains his relationship with the Retros and adds a more somber tone to the game, particularly to it's add-on, Righteous Fire.

Player character

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

System requirements

On the box of the German disk version of privateer there was as hardware minimum requirements announced a 386 DX with 25 MHz. But on the first pages of the manual suddenly they wrote that the minimum is a 386 DX with 33 MHz. From nowadays viewpoint, when clock speed is counted at hundreds, nothing important, but in 1993 this was rather annoying when you just owned a 25 MHz machine.

Awards

  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #59 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking

Information also contributed by Benjamin Dunham, Kasey Chang, xcorn1602 and Zovni

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Related Sites +

  • Privateer entry on Old Skool PC - Classics Reunited
    Nifty site with lots of info on Wing Commander: Privateer. Game details, overview of all the ships in the game, stats on everything from weapons to commodities, the NavMap, list of planets and bases, mission walkthrough, desktop themes... even some soundtrack files. Also has some links to patches and editors.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 611
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by IJan.

Additional contributors: Terok Nor, test test, Zeikman, Patrick Bregger.

Game added February 19, 2020. Last modified January 19, 2024.