Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom

1001 Video Games

Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Cast

• Now well-known actor Casper Van Dien ("Sleepy Hollow", "Starship Troopers") got his first non-TV role in a bit part for this game. Officially dubbed "Confed Pilot #3," he can be spotted during one of the early cinematics as Blair and Maniac first board their new carrier.
• The non-speaking pilots on the roster are mostly Origin employees on the WC IV project. For example, Anthony "Yaeger" Sommers (QA Project Lead), Frank "Turbo" Roan (Lead Programmer), and more.

Extras

Creative Labs included a special DVD version of this game with their original DVD drives that included higher quality recompressed video.

Novelization

There is a novelization of the game published by Baen Books.

Production cost

As of June 2000, WC IV held the record for most expensive video game ever made. Dissatisfied with the blue-screened video of #3, Chris Roberts decided he wanted to build full-sized sets for the game. The end result was around $10 million dollars spent. By comparison, that's roughly what the original Star Wars movie cost. As of 2002, WC IV is the second most expensive game after Shenmue.

Removed content

One scene got cut out of the final game. The scene, which shows Wilford telling Blair to board a Black Lance Transport was never released in any official form, but can be found around the net. Be warned that since the scene was cut out at the last minute it is already encoded, meaning you'll need Xanmovie to play it, just like any other WC IV movie file (Xanmovie can be found on Origin's Crusader: No Regret).

Story issue

In a rare "script ignore" for the Wing Commander series, if 2nd Lt. Troy "Catscratch" Carter (played by Mark Dacascos, also of several movies including "Le Pacte des loups" (Brotherhood of the Wolf), survives his final mission, he absolutely disappears from the rest of the game. No mention is made of his fate at all and he is no longer available as a wingman. Lt. Velina Sosa, who is his love interest and is quite upset should he die, never mentions his mysterious disappearance from the ship. Also, his name disappears from the killboard. Normally, when a pilot is killed, "KIA" is written next to their name and their stats remain. But Catscratch, for all intents and purposes, is erased from existence if he actually survives the one mission he doesn't complete properly.

Windows 95 Patch

A Windows 95 patch is available that makes the game run smoother and look better when playing under Windows 95.

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Jason Musgrave, John Chaser, Kasey Chang, WizardX, and Zovni