Wing Commander Prophecy demonstrated a shift away from the lengthy FMV sequences of the previous two games and a return of the focus on gameplay. Featuring the new Vision graphics engine, Prophecy introduced a new alien threat and a new generation of Confederation pilots, while giving a last glimpse of the old.
Wing Commander Prophecy Gold, containing both Wing Commander Prophecy and Wing Commander Secret Ops, is currently (since 7th November 2013) available from gog.com. Extensive background information for Wing Commander Prophecy is available at the CIC, together with promotional images from Mark Vearrier (plus the high-resolution update) and Origin’s Press Kits.
Wedge009’s interpretation of the Singaporean edition of the ICIS manual for Wing Commander Prophecy. A PDF version of the Prophecy Gold manual is also available from the CIC.
When stuck on a mission, try the CIC’s very thorough game guide. The Midway’s Tactical Database is also listed here, although the figures it quotes are not necessarily the same as those used in the game engine.
Early versions of the Wing Commander Prophecy movie script are available from the CIC’s Document Archive section. Wedge009’s interpretation of the dialogue from Wing Commander Prophecy is also available for easy reference.
Mario “HCl” Brito has collected together years of research and hacking to produce a Wing Commander Propehcy Enhancement Pack. This package includes numerous innovations previously released separately, including the high-resolution patch pioneered in his work for Secret Ops, the video skip fix to correct skipping movies in modern PCs, and a new multi-player patch. More information is available from his site.
A more recent development, Alex “Pedro” Barnfield has released an OpenGL renderer for Prophecy and Secret Ops, following its introduction in Standoff Episode 4. The new renderer enables flexible screen resolution selection, eliminates texture alignment problems encountered with the DirectX renderer, adds transparency effects previously only available with the Glide renderer, and enhances the background star field, refreshing the graphical atmosphere of the games. With further improvements introduced for the final episode of Standoff, an updated version of the OpenGL renderer was released for the CIC’s thirteenth birthday.
High-resolution versions of the FMV from Prophecy – as DVD-standard VOB files – are available from the CIC. The seven and a half minutes introduction was released first, while the rest of the movies followed in three separate instalments. The complete collection is available in the Holovids section, along with information on how to integrate it with the game. This information is also available through WCPedia.
With the advent of neural network based upscaling (popularly referred to as 'artificial intelligence'), upscaled video packs based on the DVD-quality movies are also available since at least 2020. Combined with the ongoing Prophecy and Secret Ops model upgrade project, this ensures Prophecy remains a high-definition game experience well into the 21st century far beyond its original release.
All the music from Wing Commander Prophecy can be extracted easily from the MUSIC.TRE file on CD2 using Game Audio Player (download), as well as audio from the FMV (MOVIES?.TRE). The track list for the music from MUSIC.TRE is as follows (with MP3s available from the CIC):
Other music from Wing Commander Prophecy is also available from the CIC’s music albums section. Specifically, the Prophecy Club Mixes, Cobalt 60’s Twelve, and the Music from the Wing Commander Universe (tracks 3, 6, 7, and 10) CDs.
A number of lines and scenes were recorded and included in Prophecy, but appear to have been left out of the game. Some of them are available here – the first four are from the first mission, “Kilrathi Distress Call” (SPEECH1.TRE), and the next two are special ‘debriefings’ from Rachel Coriolis (MOVIES.TRE on CD3). Audio from movies can be extracted easily using Game Audio Player, and the movies themselves can be viewed using Mario “HCl” Brito’s Wing Commander Movie Player. All audio (music, speech, sound effects, etc) can be extracted using HCl’s TRE Manager and Audio Tool.
| Name | Size | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Maestro | 39 KiB | Maestro’s response to Maniac’s “Plebe Patrol” call. |
| Spyder | 55 KiB | Spyder, as Charlie Lead, is the among the first from the Midway to encounter the aliens. |
| Anderson | 45 KiB | Lieutenant Anderson warns of the other wings’ hostile encounters. |
| No Cloak | 172 KiB | Stiletto and Maestro discover that cloaks are ineffective against the aliens. |
| Rachel 1 | 245 KiB | Rachel reckons Casey could be a captain. Hmm… |
| Rachel 2 | 306 KiB | Casey actually replies to Rachel for once! |
A number of patches and utilities have been released to improve the performance of Wing Commander Prophecy, or provide access to its internal secrets. For example, the Lens Flare Patch enables lens flares in the Direct 3D rendering mode, while Zeckensack’s Glide Wrapper is useful for emulating the Glide rendering mode on modern, non-3dfx video cards. A Windows 2000 Patch is also available for resolving compatibility issues with that operating system.
For the cheats, an Infinite Ammo Patch is available for providing unlimited gun power, missiles, and decoys, while Thomas Bruckner’s WCP Edit allows editing of nearly all aspects of gameplay within Prophecy. Ideally, these should really be used only after completing the game at least once!
Finally, 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.
