History VideoGame / WingCommander

The player is a fighter pilot serving, in most games, in the Terran Confederation Space Force. The game setting is influenced by the interest of Chris Roberts (creator of the series) in ''Film/TopGun'' (the player character's callsign, established in later {{canon}}, is Maverick, for example), as well as ''Franchise/StarWars'' (see the final mission of ''Wing Commander III'', among other examples).

The player is a fighter pilot serving, in most games, in the Terran Confederation Space Force. The game setting is influenced by the interest of Chris Roberts (creator of the series) in ''Film/TopGun'' (the player character's callsign, established in later {{canon}}, is Maverick, for example), as well as ''Franchise/StarWars'' (see the final mission of ''Wing Commander III'', among other examples). The series also pioneered a lot of technology and advances [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny we take for granted nowadays]].

* SpaceFlecks: In the games prior to ''Wing Commander III'' in particular they're quite noticeable, given the resolution of the earlier games.

** From ''Wing Commander III'' onwards, you could select a difficulty level from the options screen. AI in the higher levels use decoys to distract your missiles more frequently, and will use their own missiles more freely - and effectively. Given the deadly nature of missiles in all but the easiest difficulties, this becomes a nasty case of RealityEnsues.

* FinalDeath: either played straight or {{subverted}}, depending on the game. Some characters are plot-related deaths, but usually whether or not a shot down wingman survives depends on the specific circumstances.

** In Wing Commander 2 a mission has you escorting the TCS William Tell to destroy Kilrathi capital ships. Occasionally you also accompany the Concordia in direct combat against other ships.

* IdTellYouButThenIdHaveToKillYou: Blair, in ''Wing Commander IV'' when he comes aboard the TCS ''Lexington'', uses this line to poke fun at Maniac, taunting him with made-up classified comments from Admiral Tolwyn.averts this trope, for the most part. At most one only saw the area immediately around the eyes of the pilots wearing the helmets, and it wasn't illuminated other than by the light in the cockpit (which just shifted the problem out of the helmet, but that's not this trope).

* FrickinLaserBeams:
** Played straight with most of the guns, none of which have bolts that travel at lightspeed.
** The Tachyon cannon is a special case. According to tachyon theory[[note]]no tachyons have been actually observed in RealLife; at present they only exist as a mathematical concept[[/note]], they're not capable of traveling slower than light, but the manuals mention that their greater damage potential is in part due to the gun mechanism bringing the particles down to sublight speeds.

* TankGoodness: In ''Wing Commander IV'', one of the missions in the Circe mission series puts you in the position of halting an offensive by [[FrickinLaserBeams laser]]-armed {{hovertank}}s.

* ''[[VideoGame/WingCommanderTheKilrathiSaga Wing Commander]]'', in which your nearly-SilentProtagonist becomes a hotshot pilot aboard the TCS ''Tiger's Claw'', a famed carrier in the Terran Confederation serving in the Vega sector of space. It made use of a fully-orchestrated (if MIDI) VariableMix, helping to make Sound Blaster a household name in computers.

** In general, the manuals for many of these games are ''legendary''; the "feelies" that came with the first game in particular are beloved by many gamers of the early 90s and contained ''tons'' of background information not directly mentioned in the game (in fact the game assumes you read the manual and know the history... just like your character would). WC III and ''Prophecy'' had somewhat similar detailed manuals, as did ''Armada'' and both ''Privateer'' games, and the lack of this is generally one of the strikes held against II and IV.

* ''[[VideoGame/WingCommanderIVThePriceOfFreedom Wing Commander IV: the Price of Freedom]]'' takes place two years after the end of the war, after Blair has retired and... [[CallToAgriculture become a farmer]] on a [[SingleBiomePlanet desert planet]]. Instead of [[ShoutOut buying some droids]], he's re-activated to investigate unrest out on the frontier, where the difference between friend and foe isn't quite as clear-cut as it used to be.

* ''[[VideoGame/WingCommanderTheKilrathiSaga Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger]]'', in which the series moves to rendered 3D graphics and FullMotionVideo, involving several big-name stars; it was marketed as "The First Interactive Movie." Blair helps take the war to the Kilrathi one more time, but not without cost.

* {{Cutscene}}: The series as a whole made extensive use of cutscenes, originally with animated art and then later with live-action FullMotionVideo, to tell the story between the missions and provide the general atmosphere for the setting.

* HelloInsertNameHere: Prior to the option of available speech, the name and callsign you chose at the start of the game was worked into the speech text. Starting with the FullMotionVideo of ''Wing Commander III'', you could only choose your callsign, but it was never mentioned in conversation.

** When the games made the jump to FullMotionVideo, the ratio of ethnicities tilted towards Caucasians, but there was still a fairly significant non-token minority presence, including the first carrier captain seen in the series who wasn't white, Captain Eisen.

* MultipleEndings: Particularly in the games with FMV, the ending you get is determined either by gameplay performance or RelationshipValues.

* StoppedNumberingSequels: The fifth "main" game, ''Wing Commander: Prophecy'', dropped the numbering of sequels from earlier games, the series stepping back from the extensive FullMotionVideo of the previous two installations to more of a focus on gameplay, after creator Chris Roberts left Origin.

* ''Wing Commander Secret Ops'' was originally [[UsefulNotes/DigitalDistribution released online]] as a free EpisodicGame, and may be the UrExample of that trope. It moves six ''Midway'' pilots to a new ship for another campaign against the "Nephilim" invaders as they strike at the heart of the [[TheFederation Confederation]]. ''Secret Ops'', running on a modified version of ''Prophecy''[='s=] VISION GameEngine, is something of a favorite in the GameMod community for its relative ease of modification.

* {{Feelies}}: Origin in general was good about this: the first game came with a "ship-board magazine" written by crew members of the ''Tiger's Claw'' (IE Roberts, WarrenSpector and Creator/AaronAllston) and contained tidbits which were used to answer CopyProtection questions. When they created collection releases (''Kilrathi Saga'', for the first three "main" games", and ''Prophecy Gold'' for ''Prophecy'' and ''Secret Ops'') they didn't just slap together the original manuals, but created new ones that included extra information that the originals didn't have, as well as the information from the individual releases.

* BlamingTheRailroadedPlayerCharacter: In one of the games, you shoot down a traitor pilot who ejects. You get a cutscene where you could shoot him in his survival pod, but you don't shoot him before your squadron leader swoops in and takes him into custody. The traitor later escapes and a fellow pilot berates you for not shooting him when you had the chance. Except, of course, you didn't - there's no way to affect the way the cutscene and the subsequent plot plays out.

* BlackDudeDiesFirst: Cobra in ''Wing Commander III'', who is the first of your usual wingmen to be KilledOffForReal when [[spoiler:Hobbes betrays the Confederation]]. However this is ONLY if you choose not to get revenge by going after her attacker.

* ChargedAttack: The Charging Mass Driver from ''Prophecy'' and ''Secret Ops'' is a modified Mass Driver rigged with a special capacitor that deals more damage than the standard variant based on much energy the gun has built up by holding the trigger button. When fully charged, depending on the enemy fighter, a direct hit can either take out its shields entirely or destroy it outright by chance. This gun is exclusively mounted on the Tigershark medium fighter and the Shrike bomber.

* PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo: In the first four games, your PlayerCharacter is Christopher Blair. Then comes ''Prophecy'', where Blair is an NPC, and you take on the role of a rookie pilot.

* InSpaceEveryoneCanSeeYourFace: The series

* InSpaceEveryoneCanSeeYourFace: The series

A series of space-based Flight Sim and combat games from Origin Systems, Inc., dating back to 1990 with spinoffs including one movie, animated series, novels, even a few [[TheMerch action figures]].

* PaletteSwap: Due to cartridge space limitations, the {{SNES}} ports of ''Wing Commander'' and ''Wing Commander: The Secret Missions'' use the Salthi model in a different color for the Jalthi heavy fighter, though it did have the correct (and painful, for their target) gun loadout and performance.

** In the first game, it's also entirely possible to come back from a mission (and it's inevitably the really hard ones where this will happen) only to have your wingman crash into the Tiger's Claw and die because they take formation flying a little too seriously. Very annoying if you're trying to keep everyone alive. You could usually avoid it if you told your wingman to return to base. It was really bad when your ''wingman'' sank the Claw more than the ''Kilrathi'' did- something the {{SNES}} version of the first game was particularly prone to.

* ''Wing Commander Arena'' follows, with a TimeSkip, after ''Secret Ops'', but [[ExcusePlot doesn't really have a storyline as such]] other than some descriptions of the GreatOffscreenWar with the Nephilim [[AllThereInTheManual in the manual]], as its primary focus is multiplayer combat. It is an ''UsefulNotes/XBoxLiveArcade'' exclusive game.

* NonLinearSequel: ''Wing Commander II'' was set ten years after the end of the second [[ExpansionPack addon]], the XBox Live game ''Arena'' was set 20 years after the events of ''Prophecy'', and ''Privateer 2: The Darkening'' was... well, its own little world, for the most part, with subtle hints of a connection to the "main" games dropped throughout the game.