Topic summary

Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi

Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi

Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi, released in 1991 for MS-DOS by Origin Systems, is the second game in Chris Roberts' Wing Commanderspace combat simulation video games.

Wing Commander II retains much of the first game's core conventions: an interstellar war between the Terran Confederation and the felinoid warrior race called the Kilrathi, multiple allies as wingmen, and a wide variety of ships on both sides of the war. However, WCII places a greater emphasis on storytelling, with sprite-animated cutscenes and some of the industry's first examples of voice acting. The storyline is also somewhat less open-ended: the game's campaign tree is much more structured and the player character can no longer be promoted or awarded medals. Wingmen can no longer be killed during normal gameplay; when their fighters are damaged beyond repair, they eject (though some die in scripted sequences). Finally, because the story is a direct sequel to WC, many Kilrathi ships have names similar to the WC ships they replace (for instance, the "Sartha" replaces the "Salthi", and the Confederation uses an upgraded version of the Rapier medium fighter).

Expansion packsSpecial Operations 1 and 2, were released in 1991 and 1992, respectively, and a stand-alone spin-off, Wing Commander Academy, in 1993. Origin also released a Speech Accessory Pack, which upgraded WCII with pre-recorded voice acting in select, plot important scenes.

A port for the Super NES by FCI was announced for May 1995, but never released. A Genesis version was also planned but never released.