


Roberts and Manners quickly connected the dots, thinking it would be an exciting opportunity to explore the seedy underbelly of the Wing Commander universe through a Han Solo-esque protagonist. The original idea for Trade was to include no battles or piloting, just management. Chris Roberts was busy leading Strike, but was intrigued enough to brainstorm the concept alongside Joel Manners, also part of the Strike team. While Strike Commander was in development, marketing had the idea to create a trading and commerce simulator, provisionally titled Trade Commander. The success of the original Wing Commander and its continued impact in the PC gaming landscape, with Strike on the horizon, created a lot of excitement in Origin’s entire staff, including its marketing department.
#WING COMMANDER PRIVATEER CREDITS UPGRADE#
You can upgrade your ship, travel to over 60 star systems, and fight off pirates, bounty hunters, Kilrathi, and even Confederation forces! It’s a dog-eat-dog galaxy out there, and it’s all yours to explore and take part in. You take on combat missions as well as trading and smuggling cargo in the lawless expanse of the Gemini Sector, far from the frontlines of the escalating Terran-Kilrathi War. As the titular ‘privateer’, you eke out a meager living on the far edges of space. In Privateer, you control a new character: ‘Brownhair’ aka Grayson Burrows. The next installment in the Wing Commander main series was still a year or so away when players were treated to the biggest departure from tradition in the series so far, Wing Commander: Privateer. The use of pre-existing engines to build from gave Origin devs the freedom to experiment without being too concerned about reinventing the wheel. With Wing Commander: Academy, Origin had seen the value in developing smaller games with existing technology in order to recoup the costs from developing their bigger releases. Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi.
