Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi (1991, DOS) Review

AND THE PIXELS KEEP ROARING

Also for: FM Towns, Macintosh, Windows

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Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi (developed by Origin Systems) opens with a genuine shock. The Tiger’s Claw—the Terran carrier you served aboard in the first game—is obliterated by Kilrathi stealth fighters. The entire crew dies. You survive only because you happened to be out on patrol. That doesn’t save you from blame. Instead, you’re court-martialed for treason.

According to the brass, the Kilrathi slipped straight through the patrol route you were assigned to cover. No one believes your testimony about newly developed stealth technology. You’re cleared for lack of evidence, but disgraced nonetheless—demoted and shipped off to a forgotten backwater system to rot for the rest of your career.

This opening sets the tone immediately. Wing Commander II leans hard into cinematic storytelling. The first game’s sense of participating in a dynamic, branching war effort is gone, replaced by a more predetermined and melodramatic narrative. Cutscenes are more frequent, some even fully voiced—but the age shows. Acting quality and audio fidelity are rough, and the writing swings wildly between effective and unintentionally silly. Still, the strong core gameplay manages to carry most of that weight.

Ten years have passed since the destruction of the Tiger’s Claw. You now endure the monotony of station life far from the front. Then, during a routine patrol, you and your wingman encounter Kilrathi fighters deep inside Terran space—an ominous breach that shouldn’t be possible.

Soon after, a Terran ship sends out a distress call. You’re ordered to assist, and just like that you’re pulled back into the war, heading toward a suspected enemy base hidden in the Enigma sector. At last, there’s a chance at redemption.

You’re reassigned to a new carrier, the Concordia, alongside familiar faces like Spirit, Angel, and eventually Paladin. They welcome you warmly. Others don’t. “Traitor” gets thrown around liberally, often to unintentionally comic effect. The protagonist grows increasingly surly, snapping at orders and reminding everyone of his superior flying skills. The result is… not flattering. He often comes across as a braggart and a bit of a douchebag.

Wing Commander II doubles down on its space opera ambitions. One of the best additions is the use of in-mission cutscenes that dynamically alter objectives. Your wingman might eject mid-fight, forcing you to finish solo. Command might suddenly issue new orders, such as escorting a crippled transport back to base. These moments help sell the illusion of a living battlefield.

Visually, the game is unmistakably a product of its time. Instead of crude polygonal models, ships are represented by detailed sprites. They look great in screenshots, but in motion they’re harder to read. An enemy fighter weaving slightly left and right still looks like the same rear-facing sprite. Get too close and the illusion breaks entirely—the image becomes pure pixel mosaic.

The dynamic soundtrack, revolutionary at the time, serves as feedback: calm tones signal safety, combat music ramps up tension, and a triumphant theme plays on successful mission completion—shifted to a minor key if you failed objectives. Today, these transitions barely register, but historically they were a big deal.

Gameplay-wise, this is largely the same streamlined space sim as before. Released only a year after its predecessor, Wing Commander II runs on the same engine with minor additions: new ship designs, a handful of weapons, and small features like a tractor beam for retrieval missions. A flight stick remains ideal, but a modern gamepad works well enough.

Modern “releases” rely on DOS emulation, which makes the game playable but introduces technical headaches. Framerate fluctuates wildly depending on sprite density, forcing you to manually adjust CPU cycles mid-game. It’s immersion-breaking, especially during hectic battles.

Thankfully, this is mostly an issue in asteroid fields or massive enemy clusters. Asteroid combat is rare—I only encountered it twice, and avoided one instance entirely by taking a long detour. Mission design is stronger overall: more varied, more tightly integrated into the narrative, and often punishingly difficult. Several missions felt like boss encounters, requiring a dozen retries to crack.

"New releases" of Wing Commander II are played through a DOS emulator. This is great in getting the game to run at all. But it doesn't keep the framerate from being all over the place, constantly changing with the number of sprites displayed simultaneously on-screen. Constantly altering the emulator's CPU cycle to slower and faster settings is the only way to fix this. And needless to say, this rips you out of the heat of the moment.

Luckily, this is only really a problem in asteroid fields or against a great cluster of enemies. At least asteroid combat is a very rare feature - I think it only happens twice throughout the game, and I managed to avoid one of them entirely. Overall, the mission design is better this time around; more varied, challenging and better integrated into the story. Some of the assignments can be interpreted almost as boss encounters, and they are deadly. The hardest ones I had to retry at least a dozen times.

Enemy AI is noticeably improved. Kilrathi fighters sometimes cooperate, baiting you into bad positions. Supposedly the AI adapts to player performance, though if so, it’s invisible. That said, friendly AI is just as reckless as the enemy. Wingmen will happily fire straight through you to land a shot—though you’re just as guilty when the roles reverse.

Narratively, the branching war structure from the first game is gone. Your performance no longer alters the course of the conflict, though it can affect difficulty later on. Fail to destroy a transport, and the next mission may throw extra enemies at you.

The game is also more forgiving. Downed pilots always eject and are rescued without exception, giving the impression that the Terran forces have an infinite supply of fighters. A few deaths still occur, but they’re scripted and unavoidable.

The soap-opera dialogue oscillates between charming and ridiculous. Spirit and Angel have the strongest arcs, with satisfying emotional payoffs. Paladin’s storyline fizzles out. Stingray is a hilariously antagonistic presence. The rest of the cast mostly fills space.

Unfortunately, the narrative stumbles hard near the end. Early on, it’s obvious there’s a traitor among the pilots. Anyone with basic narrative instincts can guess who it is long before the reveal. And when it finally happens, the justification ranks among the worst plot twists I’ve encountered—it simply makes no sense.

Even stranger, the paranoia is underplayed. Sabotage and leaks barely register with command. Everyone gets the benefit of the doubt—except you.

Still, after a slow start, Wing Commander II pulled me in. Like the first game, it doesn’t excel in any single area, but it balances enough elements to sustain an engaging playthrough. Missions are open-ended enough to allow personal approaches, and the increased difficulty makes victories genuinely satisfying.

I eventually made peace with the technical issues and embraced the story for what it is: pulpy entertainment. The trimmed mission tree, which some fans lament, didn’t bother me—I barely noticed it in the original anyway.

I’ll end with a plea. Space flight sims may be out of fashion, but isn’t it time for a Wing Commander reboot? Update the presentation. Tighten the narrative with some ruthless, Game of Thrones-style intrigue. Add light RPG progression. And sure—include multiplayer if you must.

Just don’t let it take over.

Wing Commander is, at heart, a story-driven space soap opera—not a playground for snotty brats with too much free time.