Outlines & Scripts for Wing Commander Prophecy

Wing Commander 5 Game Design Document

The earliest collected game design document for the game. Dated September 27, 1996, this large document has everything the team wanted to do with the game -- in detail. From medals, wingmen and mission specifications to a detailed writeup of the 'Tom Dane' version of the game's story, it's all here.

Wing Commander V Script, Second Draft

The second draft of the Wing Commander V (Prophecy) outline! The first thing you'll notice is another shift in characters. Tom Dane is gone, replaced with Lance Casey. Also missing is Hawk, who is replaced by a new character named Bandit...

Wing Commander V Script, Second Draft (Cain)

The October 28, 1996 Second Draft Outline for Wing Commander Prophecy. This version belonged to Billy Cain and contains his margin notes.

Wing Commander V Script, Second Draft (Guentzel)

The October 28, 1996 Second Draft Outline for Wing Commander Prophecy. This version belonged to John Guentzel and contains his margin notes.

Wing Commander V Script, Second Draft (Neumann)

The October 28, 1996 Second Draft Outline for Wing Commander Prophecy. This version belonged to Jorg Neumann and contains his margin notes. Pages that do not contain notes have been omitted from this version, so it is only 88 pages long instead of 240.

Second Draft Beat Outline

Was 600 pages of scripts too much for you? It's understandable - so check out this Wing Commander V Beat Outline. It's a short document which runs through every scene in the game and briefly explains what happens... perfect for quick reference or those who enjoy seeing Stiletto referred to as "foil girl".

Second Draft Beat Outline (Team Comments)

Another October 28 document - that must have been a big deadline for the Prophecy team. Today we see the team's comments on the Second Draft Outline... and they're really interesting. For example, Captain Johnny managed to get rid of Kilrathi Reservation planets and Dallas' awkward second callsign... but his note about Casey's lame first name fell on deaf ears.

Wing Commander Prophecy Script, Final Draft

This is Wing Commander Prophecy's shooting script (the "Absolute Very Last Ultimate Final Draft") -- the version filmed for the actual game. It's dated April 30, 1997 and you will notice that it's a lot shorter than any of the earlier outlines. Part of the 140 missing pages are the mission outlines - but others are content that was deemed too expensive or too elaborate for the project at this point.

Mission Series Overview

This is similar to the plot concepts offered earlier in this series, except that it is the result of the team's three months of work. You'll find that it's very similar to the finished script in structure. Key differences include opening with a training series in which the player fights Kilrathi renegades and including a second character who is kidnapped and ultimately lost with Blair.

Mission Series Overview

This short section of the Wing Commander Prophecy bible offers a six-page overview of a mid-development Wing Commander Prophecy script. Divided into acts, this is the version that ends with Blair and the Maestro character missing in action. If only...

Script VDUs

These are the 'story'-related VDU segments. It's interesting that these are separate; presumably they're filmed in the same way by the same group of people as the regular script.

Script

This is a draft of the Wing Commander Prophecy script! Although it claims to be the first, dated 1996, it clearly isn't -- it has the correct names for the characters and other changes made later in the process. The most interesting thing is the character bios, which seem to be the source of information offered at the original wingcommanderprophecy.com site (like Rachel's divorces).

Mission Briefings

We leave specific mission updates behind with a nice meaty document -- the 47-page mission briefing script. These seem to be very close to the finished version, although some cuts are noted. The most interesting thing to me is the 'stylesheet' at the beginning. Why can't ICIS refer to the player as 'you'? Clearly, thought went into this...

Mission Script

Rekindle your love of comm messages with this complete mission script -- every single 'mission specific' comm message, in order from Hrekkah to Kilrah.

Second Unit Script (1)

The 'Second Unit' of a film production is the team that does the less glamorous film work -- anything that isn't deemed important enough to merit the director. That means things like establishing and effects shots on a major motion picture; for Wing Commander Prophecy it seems to mean all the comm messages and the 'postage stamp' in-flight videos.

Second Unit Script (2)

This Excel file is a more compact version of the other Second Unit list; this one seems to have been pared down to a point where it's roughly equivalent with the finished product.