All the Little People

We've taken a look under the hood of Wing Commander II and come away with more questions than answers! This collection of sprites is the 'mid' character artwork, the ones that show up in establishing and group shots punctuated by the more familiar animated portraits. Let's take a look and maybe you can help identify some of the mystery images!

The Kilrathi sprites include Khasra and the guard that appears next to him in one cut scene… and one kil we can't put our finger on! Does the older Kilrathi ever actually show up in the game? He might have been intended to stand in for Khasra in the final mission cutscene… but in the final game Khasra being shot down doesn't stop him from talking to Thrakhath later.

Duty uniforms from the base game: Angel, Hobbes, Stingray, Downtown, Doomsday, Jazz, Shadow and Spirit. Pay attention to Hobbes' boots, which are accurate to the ones seen on his physical costume in Wing Commander III!

Duty uniforms from the mission disks: Major Edmonds, Minx, Crossbones, Talon and Maniac.

Flight suits from the base game: Angel, Hobbes, Doomsday, Jazz and Shadow.

Flight suits from the mission disks: Paladin, Blair, Thrakhath, Minx, Crossbones, Talon and Maniac. I had never noticed while playing that Maniac has different pants and that he wears a little medal (presumably from saving that strike fleet at Deneb).

Other: a guard, Tolwyn, Paladin, Spirit in her kimono and a guard variant added for Special Operations 1. The second guard is almost identical to the original one.

This is a set of scene specific variants and we don't know where they're from exactly. Smaller Angel (use unknown), smaller Tolwyn (use unknown), Tolwyn at his desk, Sparks on the repair deck, Downtown at the planetary base. Jazz at the piano and Angel at her desk.

Backs, duty uniforms: Spirit, Blair, Angel, Stingray and Jazz.

Backs, flight suits: Spirit, Blair, Ralgha, Stingray, Jazz, Doomsday and Shadow.

Other: Thrakhath, Blair in dress uniform, Paladin

Mission disks: Paladin in flight suit, Thrakhath in flight suit, Maniac in flight suit and Jazz in dress uniform.