Mankind’s epic struggle against the Kilrathi draws to a close in Wing Commander III with the Terran Confederation turning to desperate measures to survive. Wing Commander III combined high-resolution graphics with the RealSpace engine, producing a massive leap in graphics over its predecessor, Wing Commander II, and introduced full motion video (FMV) featuring a cast of high-calibre actors including Malcolm McDowell, Tom Wilson, John Rhys-Davies, and Mark Hamill as the player character, Colonel Christopher Blair.
Wing Commander III is currently available from gog.com (since 13th September 2011) and EA Origin (since 12th June 2014). Extensive background information for Wing Commander III is available at the CIC.
The Wing Commander III Victory Streak manual is presented as an in-universe ship magazine, similar to Claw Marks for the original Wing Commander. Also, the CIC has provided the Warbirds poster, which outlines several Confederation and Kilrathi fighters encountered in the game, in black-and-white and colour.
The Kilrathi Saga manual, presented as a scrapbook put together by Christopher Blair, the player character, includes background information from Wing Commander I, II and III.
When stuck on a mission, try the CIC’s very thorough game guide.
An early version of the Wing Commander III movie script is available from the CIC. Wedge009’s interpretation of the dialogue is also available for easy reference.
As of 2020 there is no known way to integrate upgraded movies (as with Wing Commander IV and Prophecy) into Wing Commander III, nonetheless there is an upscaled video pack available for enjoyment outside of the game itself.
MIDIs from Wing Commander III are available from the CIC. Alternatively, they can be extracted from GAMEFLOW.TRE using Mario “HCl” Brito’s TRE Manager. The MIDIs are within 00000032.IFF and can be extracted using Ripper 5. They are in HMI/HMP format, but can be played easily using the MIDI plug-in packaged with Winamp.
Music MP3s are also available from the CIC. Several of the music pieces were recorded by Mad Hatter and encoded to variable bit rate (VBR) MP3s, as originally requested by Wedge009. In addition, tracks 1 to 4 of the Origin Audio CD Volume 3 include very high quality recordings of the orchestral music from key sections of the Wing Commander III movies.
Some of the more significant inflight plot-related speech are available here as MP3s. At the low bit-rate used, some distortion is evident in the audio output, however, the files contain speech only and such noise should be acceptable. If not, the comms can be extracted from the CDxMISS.TRE files on each CD using TRE Manager, and opening the files as RAW sound data (mono, 8 bit, ~11 kHz).
| Title | Size | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Admiral Tolwyn | 36 KiB | Admiral Tolwyn commends Colonel Blair for his efforts in protecting the Behemoth. |
| Thrakhath 1 | 68 KiB | Prince Thrakhath taunts Maverick and reveals Angel’s fate… |
| Thrakhath 2 | 107 KiB | Prince Thrakhath challenges Maverick to a duel while Rollins urges him to return. |
| Loki 3 Debriefing | 47 KiB | Lieutenant Rollins offers his sympathies to Maverick as the TCS Victory retreats. |
| Lord Ralgha nar Hhallas | 67 KiB | Ralgha nar Hhallas wishes Maverick well during their final meeting in Alcor. |
| Kilrah 2 Briefing | 47 KiB | General Taggart leaves some instructions for Maverick. |
| Kilrah 3 Briefing | 44 KiB | General Taggart’s final words for Maverick before the last attempt to defeat the Kilrathi. |
| Thrakhath 3 | 162 KiB | Prince Thrakhath’s last challenge for the Heart of the Tiger. |
When Wing Commander III was released, CD-ROM drives capable of using 74-minute CDs were still relatively new in the home PC. Fearing that they would alienate a large portion of an already small market if they had used the larger capacity discs, Origin published WC III for the PC on four 64-minute CDs, and a number of FMV sequences were cut from the game as a result. Most of them were trivial, however, arguably one of the most important scenes, “Hobbes’ Explanation” was also cut. Various versions of these ‘missing’ FMVs can be found at the CIC, as well as various behind-the-scenes clips and even a full-length fan movie.
On 22nd March 2012, the long-running fan project Wing Commander Saga released its main campaign, The Darkest Dawn. Based on the Freespace 2 engine, The Darkest Dawn recreates the increasing tensions of the war between the Terran Confederation and Kilrathi Empire as it heads inexorably to its dramatic conclusion as presented in Wing Commander III, but from the perspective of the a relatively inexperienced pilot aboard the carrier, TCS Hermes. The Hermes and her escorts engage in actions closely related to the events of Wing Commander III, but on a far greater, grand fleet scale in contrast to the Heart of the Tiger’s personal war from the TCS Victory. Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn is a free download, developed by fans, for fans.
Users of Mario “HCl” Brito’s Wing Commander Movie Player may find the TRE Index compiled by Wedge to be of some use in sorting movies. Alternatively, another movie guide is available at the CIC.
