The Wing Commander 3 Endings
To celebrate the release of Wing Commander 3 on Good Old Games today, it seems fitting to take a look at the different ways the game could end, because there were two possible outcomes: victory, or defeat. All of the Wing Commander games featured branching mission trees that could arrive you at a good or bad end depending on your performance during missions and your choices during downtime.
Here, for example, is the victory ending, and then the version in which the player chooses to pursue a romance with Ginger Lynn Allen’s deckhand, Rachel Coriolis.
Bow chika bow wow.
And here is the alternate romantic component of the victory ending, in which the player chooses to pursue a romance with Jennifer MacDonald’s character, a pilot nicknamed Flint.
We had no choice.
The losing endgame for Wing Commander 3 features two things: a final mission that is basically an unwinnable battle against an unending armada of Kilrathi ships, and a final cutscene depicting the death of Mark Hamill’s Col. Blair, and the destruction of humankind.
Genocide is implied.
There is a alternate scene for Mark Hamill’s death; in this video, the player chose a more submissive answer when pressed by the Kilrathi leader, and opted to plead for mercy. If the player chooses a defiant answer, Blair is not incinerated, but gutted to death (which, according to series lore, is a gesture of respect that Kilrathi only afford to enemies they regard as great warriors).
I couldn’t find a version of the above video that featured the death-by-gutting, but there is another cutscene that plays about halfway through the game, in which Col. Jeanette “Angel” Devereaux (played by Yolanda Jilot) is executed in this manner:
Bad kitty. Bad, bad kitty!
Joe Garrity, of Origin Museum fame, actually has in his possession the claw prop used by the actor portraying the Kilrathi leader. Or, as he likes to put it, “I have the claw that kills Blair.”
And remember: to properly celebrate the release of another ground-breaking* Origin game on GOG, I can only direct you to the Wing Commander CIC, which I am sure will be going insane with new content. Be sure to also hit up the #WingNut IRC channel, which will likely be bustling with activity all day long, and especially during the evening hours.
One of the things I liked about the first two Wing Commanders is that they didn’t imply that the war between man and Kilrathi was some epic war for survival between genocidal foes. It was, at first, just a war.
Even the Kilrathi pilots taunted you by calling you “Confed ape” – ie, they referred to you by the government you served, not by your species.
I think that added a lot of nuance and complexity to the setting that was lacking in WC3. Although even in WC1, there were hints near the end that the conflict was going to get genocidal (from dialogue with Spirit in the expansion packs, I believe).
In any case, that nuance was added back with the introduction of the Border Worlds faction in WC4.
I agree, that’s what my biggest beaf with WC3 – it basically just turned everything extremly black and white, while WC2 had more shades of grey, with even Kilrathi worlds rebelling against the Emperor. The biggest face in the slape being obviously Hobbes turning out a sleeper agent with the silly excuse “Kilrathi do not betray so I had to be brainwash from WC”. Ugh.
But then to be fair WC3 is pretty terrible in term of consistency with WC1&2 both in term of plot elements and characterisation. Which is explaining from the change of medium to some degree but not everything.
I actually kind of WC3 as as the Ultima IX of WC actually. Great game, fitting ending, but somewhat weak sequel.
I actually think Hobbes’ betrayal could have been a good plotline if done properly. It should not not have happened because he was a sleeper agent.
It should have happened something like this: Hobbes would betray you after being driven mad by the realization that the only way to end the war was to commit genocide on his own species. It would end with him committing suicide.
Probably too dark and politically incorrect for the time.
From everything I’ve seen, I’m glad I stopped after WCII. The Jim Henson stuff and Mark Hamill really dropped a stinking load on the prettiness of the first two. Reminds me of Night Trap with space ships.
The Hobbes thing would a felt a cop-out no matter what methinks because it just screams “LETS MAKE HOBBES THE TRAITOR BECAUSE HE IS THE UNLIKELY-EST ONE!!!”. But it could have been handled better.
Now I could actually see the Genocidal plan to be a good a reason for Hobbes to betray the Confederation, there have did some stuff related to Doomsday’s death I think (since he was the reason he betrayed the Kilrathi to begin with) but yeah… sleeper agent. I actually liked it better when there was no explanation in hindsight.
Also while I don’t mean to diminish the genocidal aspect of destroying Kilah, it is perhaps a tad overblown, because the endgame makes it feel the Kilrathi are gone basically while as far as I remember there were still a lot of Kilrathi planets and systems. While I can see how this would end the war, the race doesn’t seem dying by a long shot.
And Sanctimonia please don’t compare Wing Commander to Night Tarp, these are fighting words 😛
“And Sanctimonia please don’t compare Wing Commander to Night Tarp, these are fighting words.”
Haha, got a super duper laugh out of that one. I know, it’s not Night Trap. I love WC, but the live action stuff REALLY soured me. So I have to attack it because damn I wish they’d kept the nice artwork and not gone for the latest and greatest technology, which I’d never liked. The earlier ones were so pretty.
The script is actually very clever about Hobbes; you don’t realize it as you’re playing, but a great deal of the video in the first half of the game is written to force you to *choose* to defend Hobbes. You’re given the opportunity over and over again to indicate that you suspect him, but the way the game presents it makes the player think that’s always the wrong choice. (And talk about politically incorrect–part of that is guilting you into thinking it’s the equivalent of racism to think Hobbes could be the traitor… with the reveal that no, he really was the bad guy.)
The problem is that it works in the context of Wing Commander III alone–the game pretty much ignores Wing Commander II on most levels. That’s part because it had to appeal to a massively different audience and couldn’t be bogged down with much continuity… and part because Wing Commander 2 wasn’t a Chris Roberts project. He was off doing Strike Commander and came back to WC to find he didn’t like the direction the universe had taken. (You can track a lot of the stuff he immediately threw out, especially more fantastic elements like the Firekkan bird people.)
Whoa, I didn’t know Chris Roberts had so little involvement in Wing Commander II. I guess this might explains some things, though I think it’s a bit of a shame – I still consider WC2 one of the best Wing Commander story-wise and I do feel WC3 kinda took a few step backs gameplay wise as well.
On the other hand, I don’t recall WC2 had any fantastical elements like Firekkan, had it?
I guess Roberts wasn’t that found of the less black&white approach to the Kilrathi though, oh well…
On a side note, I can’t help to feel that the whole “I had to ignore WCII not too be bogged down in continuity and bring a new audiance” to be indeed very reminiscent of Ultima IX here.
Yeah, Chris Roberts has something like an executive producer credit on Wing II, but he wasn’t there running the project.
My guess is that he objected more to the more ‘cutesy’ elements of the Ellen Guon/Stephen Beeman stuff–Firekkans, Kilrathi-as-buddies, that sort of thing. I don’t think it’s so much a desire to be more black and white as it is to drop that specifically. After all, Chris’ original proposal that he had to be talked out of for WC1 was a game where you’re serving a ‘Terran Empire’ and aren’t ever sure you’re really the *good guys* in the war with the Kilrathi…
(I don’t even think Wing Commander III was really black and white–I mean, it waxed soul searching about the genocide throughout the game… it just came to the odd resolution that it was *okay to do* once you were mad enough. 🙂 )
It is similar to Ultima 9, except… more intentional? They knew going into a four million dollar film shoot that they had to sell X-many-copies more than they did of Wing Commander II. UIX just feels muddled to me… like they realized they needed a bigger audience far too late in the game… and they somehow forgot that they should be leveraging Ultima Online to create more serious Ultima fans while the game was in development…
I’m not sure I would describe Hobbes as cutesy, but I see your point.
I’d guess calling WCIII Black&white would be exageration true and if anything the Confedration is clearly painted in a not so noble light (altough I’ve found rather funny how everyone looked disgusted and troubledby Tolwyn’s Death Star… but when it’s time for Blair to go Luke Skywalker on Kilrah well, it’s okay!).
I would say though that it’s more that the Kilrathi were rendered juste “jet black” while WCII did quite a bit of work through Hobbes and other Kilrathi rebels to make give them more shades or gray or perhaps make it human that they’d seem at first. But basically the Hobbes betrayal gives a sense of “Sorry guys, we ARE all evil actually!”, especially with the explanation thrown it.
It’s hard to tell to which extent it was intentional in Ultima IX, though perhaps forced upon might be a closer truth? There’d been these rumors after the switch to 3D and the admited more mass market approach of “Ultima Ascension” that EA was pretty much requesting the developpers to cut on making too direct references to previouses installments of the series basically in order to bring a new audience to the series and no confuse them.
Now I don’t necesarilly take all rumors at face value… but you look at some of the cut elements of the game, it’s hard not to think there must me some light of truth in it. The Guardian’s origins and all the background that came with it feels like an obvious, because they had had this long strong origins and bakcground stuff written, that was tying everything in the series back to Ultima I and beyond… and they basically simplified it to the extreme and summed it up as “The Guardian is your evil magical twin” which was always part of it, but a LOT more complex than that.
I actually do think bringing a new audiance was a good call, which is also why the whole Earth tutorial that pissed so many fans always felt right to me. Just starting Ultima IX right were Pagan left off 5.5 years after the original game would have been all kind of wrong and basically limit he game to hardcore fans. But they might have sacrified a bit too much for this (that is not even taking into account the crazy and rushed development).
I always had the impression too that they did want UO players to play Ultima IX (I still remember than Andy Hollis interview where he basically discussed that Ultima IX was not cancelled like other single player Origin games, because EA felt it could help bring player to UO too), but they never really did anything toward this.
But the thing is we can’t really know if Ultima IX might or might not have managed to bring new gamers to Ultima and sell well, because of how terrible the game was released in (which in turn lead to poor reviews, which in turn led to poor sales). I actually tend to think if it had been release in a polished state, it might have actually sold and bring new players, because in truth I’ve heard nothing but praise about this game from non-fans.
For all the electrons being expended on discussing cutscenes, muppets, and suchlike, what seems to be getting lost is the fact that a) the cutscenes are largely skippable, apart from a handful of decisions the player must make, and b) the main body of the game is still the part where you get to fly around and shoot things.
True, but I’d argue the cinematic storytelling is what made Wing Commander unique in the first place, even befor ethey switched to FMVs and live actors.
One can certainy play Wing Commander by skipping cutscenes, but to me it’d be almost as silly as playing Mass Effect by skipping dialogues and just blowing shit up.
WC2 wasn’t cutesy at all! But it did go in a sort of Mass Effect-esque “space opera” direction that perhaps Chris Roberts didn’t like. I’m thinking he was more into the hard-edged “military scifi” style.
That’d certainly make sense. You just need to look at the graphical style of WC3&4 as opposed to WC1&2. WC1/2 was all curves and colored, while WC3/4 definitly too a more gritty greyish and blocky mitiliarty feel.
Bandit Loaf:
(And talk about politically incorrect–part of that is guilting you into thinking it’s the equivalent of racism to think Hobbes could be the traitor… with the reveal that no, he really was the bad guy.)
But see, “Hobbes” was never the bad guy. His alternate personality, Ralgha nar Hhallas was. “Hobbes” never made a moral choice to betray you – he was transformed. (Imagine if the bad guys in Total Recall had succeeded in turning Quaid back into Hauser.)
I agree with you that what they did with the character was still sort of nasty and clever, but it would have been so much more powerful if Hobbes had autonomously chosen to betray you. God knows he had a reason to.
What!? Angel dies? NOooooOOo!
Wait, who’s Angel? I suppose I’m not spoiled if I don’t plan to play these games anytime soon. I’ve never gotten the hang of Space battle simulation games, though it has been a decade since I tried WC: Prophecy all by it’s lonesome – found it quite difficult to keep my bearings or find that pilot asking for help. So I scanned through the these vids anyway:
-Pretty decent animatronics, nearly Henson standard of material!
-Stellar cast, including Malcolm Mcdowell? Woot woot my droogs!
-Did anyone else think Legend of Zelda when the credits music began?
That said, I hate it when stories are forced to disregard its past because a new person in charge never liked or “got” a direction it took. Responsible story telling means acknowledging what has come before, the (opinionated) good and the bad, then making the best one can of it. Even worse is when appealing to new audiences and money become the bottom line.
If Wing Commander’s weird tie into Ultima is ever explored more then what Ultima 1 and 7 seem to hint at, then I’ll definitely have to try the series out from the start.
I’m not sure I would describe Hobbes as cutesy, but I see your point.
Cutesy isn’t a great word, but it’s hard to pick the right one. Honestly the one I’m tiptoeing around is “feminine”–essentially, you can sort of tell that Secret Missions 2, Freedom Flight and Wing Commander II were written by a woman… while everything else was not. You have less of a focus on the mechanics of the war and more on the relationships between the characters… they have a much more ‘warm’ sense to them.
I would say though that it’s more that the Kilrathi were rendered juste “jet black” while WCII did quite a bit of work through Hobbes and other Kilrathi rebels to make give them more shades or gray or perhaps make it human that they’d seem at first. But basically the Hobbes betrayal gives a sense of “Sorry guys, we ARE all evil actually!”, especially with the explanation thrown it.
I don’t agree entirely. I feel like Wing Commander 2 went *too far* in making the Kilrathi feel sympathetic; I like the idea that there are good Kilrathi, but the way they express it in the game is over the top. Especially Hobbes’ backstory in that game, which is pure saccharin (… and he couldn’t stand seeing a poor defenseless human child mistreated!)
(The slavery thing really sticks out for me–I don’t buy that planets and planets of Kilrathi would suddenly decide that this thing they’ve built their culture on for millenia is suddenly immoral, sight unseen. That’s not expanding the Kilrathi so much as it is it’s making them furry humans. I think Wing Commander III even ends with a better, more middle ground–Melek surrendering not because he’s learned the error of his ways but because he’s decided it’s the only way to preserve his race.)
It’s hard to tell to which extent it was intentional in Ultima IX, though perhaps forced upon might be a closer truth? There’d been these rumors after the switch to 3D and the admited more mass market approach of “Ultima Ascension” that EA was pretty much requesting the developpers to cut on making too direct references to previouses installments of the series basically in order to bring a new audience to the series and no confuse them.
In my experience, it’s never one side. I can’t think of a case where EA was forcing creative decisions down a development team’s throat so much as there was the understanding on the part of the team that a product needed to look like it was going to be viable if it wanted to keep being budgeted. So it’s probably not so much EA saying ‘oh, you need a 3D engine!’ as it is the team deciding that a 3D engine was going to ensure that EA thought the project was worth the money. (And the same goes for avoiding references to earlier Ultimas–that has to be an internal decision to make the game look more viable, as the guy EA flew in to Austin once a month to check progress wouldn’t know an Ultima 7 reference if it bit him in the face…)
That’d certainly make sense. You just need to look at the graphical style of WC3&4 as opposed to WC1&2. WC1/2 was all curves and colored, while WC3/4 definitly too a more gritty greyish and blocky mitiliarty feel.
One thing that Chris Roberts is FAMOUS for is wholeheartedly basing his cinematography on things he thinks are cool. 🙂 In Wing Commander I he says that was “anime” for the ships… in Wing Commander III, real aircraft (and Syd Mead for the sets). In the movie… well, Das Boot. And then later he looks back and is embarassed about the earlier choices, consistently.
But see, “Hobbes” was never the bad guy. His alternate personality, Ralgha nar Hhallas was. “Hobbes” never made a moral choice to betray you – he was transformed. (Imagine if the bad guys in Total Recall had succeeded in turning Quaid back into Hauser.)
Except in Chris Roberts’ cut of Wing Commander III, that scene was removed. Now you can argue that’s because of technical reasons rather than a desire to eliminate that… but he could have just as easily killed a useless attaboy conversation with Flash or Vaquero that wouldn’t have anywhere near the same impact on the game.
That said, I hate it when stories are forced to disregard its past because a new person in charge never liked or “got” a direction it took. Responsible story telling means acknowledging what has come before, the (opinionated) good and the bad, then making the best one can of it. Even worse is when appealing to new audiences and money become the bottom line.
It’s not QUITE that–Wing Commander III certainly acknowledges Wing Commander II… and brings back many characters… but at the same time it makes it clear that things are going to be done differently from here on out.
(In a broad look at the Wing Commander universe, the Hobbes-as-sleeper-agent works very, very well… because the first time we meet him in Freedom Flight he’s in a Kilrathi prison, suspected of plotting treason… and is then freed by the Prince himself. That whole scene makes a lot more sense if Thrakhath *needs* him to hand his ship over to the Confederation.)
“You have less of a focus on the mechanics of the war and more on the relationships between the characters… they have a much more ‘warm’ sense to them.”
That’s definitly true, though that was rather a good point for me – the character focus was a strong quality of WCII IMO.
“I don’t agree entirely. I feel like Wing Commander 2 went *too far* in making the Kilrathi feel sympathetic; I like the idea that there are good Kilrathi, but the way they express it in the game is over the top. Especially Hobbes’ backstory in that game, which is pure saccharin (… and he couldn’t stand seeing a poor defenseless human child mistreated!)
(The slavery thing really sticks out for me–I don’t buy that planets and planets of Kilrathi would suddenly decide that this thing they’ve built their culture on for millenia is suddenly immoral, sight unseen. That’s not expanding the Kilrathi so much as it is it’s making them furry humans.”
I don’t know. Sure the Hobbes saving kiddy Downtown is a tad cliched, but hell, why not ?
Also I don’t know perhaps we might have different perspective because all the books went more into this stuff, but we can’t really say the games showed or developped much or anything of the Kilrathi culture in the end, except that they felt like a kitty version of Klingons – so the whole slave bit never really came as an issue to me.
“I think Wing Commander III even ends with a better, more middle ground–Melek surrendering not because he’s learned the error of his ways but because he’s decided it’s the only way to preserve his race.)”
Oh I do think this is a proper ending – if anything the rebels Kilrathi seemed more of a minority in any case, so I like the whole “we’ve been destroyed, okay we surrender”.
“In my experience, it’s never one side. I can’t think of a case where EA was forcing creative decisions down a development team’s throat so much as there was the understanding on the part of the team that a product needed to look like it was going to be viable if it wanted to keep being budgeted”
Yeah agreed. But no matter the reason or the cause, Ultima IX just screams that someone at one point just say “Okay we need to focus on the new players and downplay the continuity”. I’m not necessarilly puting the all on EA or Origin, but a lot of stuff just screams “compromise” basically.
“One thing that Chris Roberts is FAMOUS for is wholeheartedly basing his cinematography on things he thinks are cool. In Wing Commander I he says that was “anime” for the ships… in Wing Commander III, real aircraft (and Syd Mead for the sets). In the movie… well, Das Boot. And then later he looks back and is embarassed about the earlier choices, consistently.”
This is where we wonder what the eck his Wing Commande reboot will look like if he gets funding for it 😛
“Except in Chris Roberts’ cut of Wing Commander III, that scene was removed. Now you can argue that’s because of technical reasons rather than a desire to eliminate that… but he could have just as easily killed a useless attaboy conversation with Flash or Vaquero that wouldn’t have anywhere near the same impact on the game.”
True, but considering the scene got reintregred in the console versions as soon as they got room enough… who has to wonder especially since that’s the only official explanation remaining in the end. But actually I’ve always felt the Hobbes betrayal seemed very downplayed in the end – nobody talk about it (what about Paladin who was his good buddy ?) or the consequences much, it’s just like he’s betrayed, he’s gone no let’s get over it and do more stuff.
Actually It’s been a while since I played WC3 admitedly, but I have this memory that the latest parts of the game felt somewhat rushed compared to the rest, I wonder if some stuff got cut or ?
“It’s not QUITE that–Wing Commander III certainly acknowledges Wing Commander II… and brings back many characters… but at the same time it makes it clear that things are going to be done differently from here on out.”
I would say basically that this is just as much as sequel of WCII as it is a reimagination of the universe, two in ones basically. (which is essence is not that different from how Garriott handled things Ultima-wise really).
“(In a broad look at the Wing Commander universe, the Hobbes-as-sleeper-agent works very, very well… because the first time we meet him in Freedom Flight he’s in a Kilrathi prison, suspected of plotting treason… and is then freed by the Prince himself. That whole scene makes a lot more sense if Thrakhath *needs* him to hand his ship over to the Confederation.)”
I can’t tell about Freedom Flight, but one thing I reconciled about him being a traitor, is that it retroactively explains why Trakkath didn’t kill him in SO1 when he gets the chance, the whole “I didn’t kill him because he never attacked me in the back” bit seeming a tad far fetched.
No, LOAF is spot on, especially regarding slavery. Look at human history: the US was rocked by a bloody civil war when it tried to stamp the practice out. Elsewhere in the world, it was British Marines, spurred to action by the reforms pushed by Wilberforce et. al., that dislodged the practice from its place in different cultures within what is now the Commonwealth.
In other words: we know from human history that a culturally significant (and ancient!) practice, like slavery, basically required violence and war to dislodge from cultures that practiced it. It is doubtful that these cultures would have abandoned the practice on their own.
The Kilrathi, we can assume, would be little different.
True, but considering the scene got reintregred in the console versions as soon as they got room enough… who has to wonder especially since that’s the only official explanation remaining in the end. But actually I’ve always felt the Hobbes betrayal seemed very downplayed in the end – nobody talk about it (what about Paladin who was his good buddy ?) or the consequences much, it’s just like he’s betrayed, he’s gone no let’s get over it and do more stuff.
It was in the Playstation and 3DO versions (which forked from the PC development around the same time, during that game’s development) but NOT the later Mac port… or any of the re-releases (Kilrathi Saga and so on).
Actually It’s been a while since I played WC3 admitedly, but I have this memory that the latest parts of the game felt somewhat rushed compared to the rest, I wonder if some stuff got cut or ?
I don’t know of any significant cuts. It usually wouldn’t work out like that anyway–they don’t shoot cutscenes in linear order, they do it to maximize time with various actors. (Wing Commander III /is/ surprisingly ruthless with wingmen, though–just letting one or two die when they become killable knocks out various cutscenes late in the game.) I think in general, though, Wing Commander games tend to get lighter on FMV as the game goes on, because there’s this goal of hooking people early.
(There was a speech cut at the end of the game that doesn’t appear in any version, Blair talking to his wingmen before the last mission… but it’s actually *in* the game, so they recorded it and rendered a unique background for it…)
In other words: we know from human history that a culturally significant (and ancient!) practice, like slavery, basically required violence and war to dislodge from cultures that practiced it. It is doubtful that these cultures would have abandoned the practice on their own.
And in the case of the Kilrathi, I think it’s a much, much more difficult point to get to. With humans you reach a point where you think ‘you know, these guys are just like me, why do I own them?’ and work from there. With Kilrathi, there’s not kil-on-kil slavery… they have different slave races that their culture has always believed exist for that purpose. And more than any human culture, Kilrathi slavery is necessary to how their society functions. Slaves do *everything*. (I can see a story where Kilrathi start to decide that humans aren’t a slave race because of how well they’ve fought the war… but having this Kilrathi Lord suddenly deciding that slavery itself was an embarassment to the Empire seemed over the top.)
LOAF:
Indeed; it would be like ancient Greece or Rome without slavery; the very thought seems somehow absurd.
This reminds me of the discussions we’ve had about retcons of the early Ultima games in Ultima VII.
Changing around details of a game’s background setting is much more forgivable than altering the personalities of characters you actually meet, or heavily altering the overall style and tone of the game. It just doesn’t matter as much.
This is true, but I would argue both WC and Ultima were culprit of this to certain degree.
When your think of Ultima NPCs for instance, I honestly feel Iolo, Dupre and Shamino were the only ones who remained mostly consistant over the course of the games while all the other tended to feel like different perso in each games (Julia being one of the worst contender ugh).
As for WC well, there are obvious difference of caracterisation between WC2 and WC3, though the change to actual actors probably had some role in it as well.
Prophecy’s manual seems to treat Kilrathi slavery like it’s still a perfectly normal thing twelve years after the war has ended, too. So, we weren’t fighting for the freedom of all races everywhere, just our own survival.