2021 Recovered Wing Commander Development Files

On January 17, 2021 a set of three hard drives belonging to an unidentified Origin Systems employee was recovered by Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum and Dan Chisarick. The contents included installations of Wing Commander I and II and a copy of DeluxePaint with several Wing Commander II-related animation files saved.

While the images were originally stored as ANM animation files they are actually collections of static images, likely grouped together as animations for ease of organization and/or presentation. Inividual unique frames have been saved as PCX files and exported as PNGs for the galleries seen below.

The copy of Wing Commander II appears to be a stock install of the original diskette release.

DeluxePaint Files

File Name	Size	Date	File
SABRE.ANM	131,497 bytes	‎2-27-91 4:45:14	https://download.wcnews.com/files/documents/2021datarecovery/SABRE.ANM]
SABRE2.ANM	183,320 bytes	‎2-27-91 11:56:30
TURRETS.ANM	198,358 bytes	‎2-27-91 4:46:30
WCII.LBM	3,894 bytes	‎12-10-90 10:50:54

SABRE.ANM

SABRE.ANM includes concept images for all of Wing Commander II's player ships with the exception of the Rapier (which was already designed for Wing Commander I). These concept images use UI elements from Wing Commander I to show how they will function. A previously unknown cut ship named the Mongoose is included as the final design.

• The Ferret features two VDUs instead of the final single unit.
• The set includes a side view for the Broadsword with the note that it would not be needed for the final game.

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SABRE2.ANM

SABRE2.ANM is a variant of SABRE.ANM with an alternate initial frame.

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TURRETS.ANM

TURRETS.ANM includes layouts for Wing Commander II's three turrets and some of their UI. The color scheme used on the turrets is significantly different from the finished game.

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WCII.LBM

WCII.LBM is a single DeluxePaint image which seems to be an imcomplete title treatment for Wing Commander II.

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WING COMMANDER

The installed version of Wing Commander seems to have several small differences from the commonly released versions. The main executable and a renamed older version (WC_OLD.EXE) feature version numbers not commmonly available. MIDGAME.V05 (the The Secret Missions winning endgame) is also a different, larger file. The significant change seems to be that the release version is better compressed (the version found here repeats the same graphic of the Emperor and his guards for several frames while the commonly available version does not). There also seem to be differences in INSTALL.EXE and TRANSFER.EXE. The copy of The Secret Missions 2: Crusade installed seems to be identical to the retail release.

File Name	Size	Date	Version
WC.EXE	304,224 bytes	‎11-28-90 13:52:00	B3.0
WC_OLD.EXE	302,528 bytes	10-4-90 1:01:10	B2.6
MIDGAME.V05	239,200 bytes	11-19-90 21:57:32	n/a
INSTALL.EXE	51,230 bytes	10-4-90 1:07:12	n/a
TRANSFER.EXE	71,072 bytes	11-19-90 21:55:48	n/a

WING COMMANDER II

The copy of Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi installed seems to be identical to the retail release.