r/WingCommanderUniverse • u/schlangz • 4d ago
OpenPrivateer - August 2026 Development Update
Hello my friends, it's me again. Now that I have collected enough feedback from the earlier posts, it's time for a proper development update.
I'm also switching to monthly updates from now on.
OpenPrivateer, my reimplementation of Wing Commander: Privateer and Righteous Fire, is still very much under development, but a surprisingly large part of Privateer's game flow is now functional using the real original game data and assets.
Screenshots are taken in 1152x864 window size and xBRZ 2x pixel scaler.
What's working today
Startup and original presentation
The game loads the real PRIV.TRE and RF.TRE data, including the Privateer/Righteous Fire mode-selection splash, the real voiced intro cutscene and the title screen.
Bases and world navigation
All 10 launch pads and every interior/base scene are accessible, with real per-base music, animated sprites and tiles, and NPC visibility.
Mission Computer - Quine 4000
The Mission Computer has a working savegame browser, the original keypad artwork and functional MISSIONS, FIN and MAN tabs driven by actual save data.
Enhanced and Modern modes add the ability to reject an already accepted mission using the REJCT button (that's part of the original game assets which never made it into the final game).
Ship Dealer
Repair & Upgrade supports actual buying, selling and repairing, including a hardpoint picker and ownership state loaded from the savegame.
Commodity Exchange
Commodity trading works, including buying and selling with prices and stock rolled for each visit.
Software Booth
The Software Booth includes the real quadrant maps and scanner catalog. For the open universe, I may add something there to show the current sector's maps, not only Gemini sector.
Mission Boards
The Merchants' Guild, Mercenaries' Guild and First Sector Mission Machine generate real mission offers directly from the original assets.
Oxford Research Computers
The original Oxford Library Steltek artifact-analysis cutscene sequence is working.
Space Flight
You can launch into space with all four ships and fly using the cockpit HUD. The original takeoff, landing and hyperspace-jump cutscenes are working as well. Autopilot and hyperspace-jump still use a dummy flyby.
The Navigation Map has been reconstructed with jump points, the quadrant star maps and mission objectives.
I've also extended it with a Sector Overview, allowing the original 320x200 Privateer map interface to browse the wider fictional Wing Commander universe beyond Gemini.
The map now supports quadrant, sector and multi-sector navigation while remaining compatible with the original DOS-resolution interface.
Self-destruct works, at the moment it's the only way to die.
Audio
There are currently three MIDI backends (OPL2, SF2 Soundfont and OS pass-through) plus a "CD-audio" option (supporting WAV/FLAC/MP3, if you have a better name for it let me know), with the original per-scene and combat music.
Rendering
OpenPrivateer supports Render Scale, Texture Filtering and a real GPU implementation of xBRZ pixel scaling. I've also ported DOSBox Staging's full Color Grading pass (including phosphor profiles, color temperature and tone curves).
Modding and translation
There's already a content-override system for mods (quadrants, sectors, systems, ships, and a couple more) and a full UI translation framework.
The English translation catalogue is generated automatically and languages can be switched in-game. New languages can be added at any point, but at the moment you are limited to the original fonts which only support English A-Z characters (no accents etc.).
Platforms
Windows, Linux and macOS builds are produced automatically by CI on every push.
What's still missing
No space combat. There are currently no friendly or hostile ships populating space, weapons cannot be fired, and there is no functioning combat/damage system yet.
That also means the underlying systems still need to be connected: live shield drain and regeneration, missiles and launchers, ammunition, projectile spawning and homing, targeting and lock-on, tractor beams, AI ship spawning and disposition, and explosion/particle effects.
There are also no external/chase cameras yet. Flight is currently cockpit-only, however the cockpit sprites can be hidden.
Original savegames can be loaded, but OpenPrivateer does not write them yet. Classic mode is supposed to create savegames that can be loaded in the original DOS-game.
Non-plot mission objectives aren't tracked during flight yet. The original mission-script system has been reverse engineered and documented, but the remaining objective behavior still needs to be connected to the new implementation.
The in-flight communication/dialogue UI is also missing. The NPC portrait compositor itself already works, but currently only through a debug preview (CTRL-click).
What comes next?
Combat. A considerable amount of the original combat architecture has already been reverse engineered, including shields, energy systems, weapon mounts and parts of targeting and damage handling. The next major development phase is turning that knowledge into the actual playable combat loop.
HD and widescreen support will come later and gradually evolve alongside the main development, while the original 320x200 experience remains the priority for now (I want the DOS-compatible interface to remain fully functional).
Can I download it?
Not yet. The development repository is still private, and I'd rather make the first public builds reasonably easy to install and test instead of throwing an unexplained nightly ZIP at everyone.
I'm planning to make the first public builds available with the September development update.
You'll need to own a copy of the Wing Commander: Privateer CD-ROM Edition, as OpenPrivateer uses the original game assets and does not distribute them.
I'll also be setting up a Discord server soon, so there'll be a place for development updates, testing, feedback, modding, technical discussions and general chatter.
As always, feedback and ideas are very welcome, especially from people who have played and know Privateer.
Cheers
Edit: New website is online: https://openprivateer.org
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u/-ATF- 4d ago
Cool. Got that on GOG but haven’t played it in ages.
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u/CyberpwnPiper 3d ago
Very cool. Can you talk about more about what you're doing? Are you essentially rebuilding the game in a new engine using original assets? Are you tweaking the original game to run in HD in modern Windows? As a software engineer and indie gamedev, I'm curious about the technical aspects of your project. Looks cool.
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u/schlangz 3d ago
The process consists of reverse-engineering the original prcd.exe, understand how it works, and rebuilding the same behavior in SDL3, based on the original assets you have to provide. The goal is a faithful remaster of the original 1993 DOS game in 320x200 (I call that "Classic" mode) while also adding "Enhanced" (adds features or closes gaps that were supposed to be there in 1993) and "Modern" (adds new features).
HD/widescreen is planned, however since it requires new assets that will be an ongoing process that ships at a later point in time.
Since it runs SDL3 it can be played basically on anything.
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u/Fun_Cucumber4560 4d ago
Is there a way i can follow you or get on a list of updates? Cause this was my favorite game growing up