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This project recreates the source of Wing Commander as shipped in Wing

Commander: The Kilrathi Saga (1996). The reconstructed game core is C, the

ix

audio library is C++, and the reference build uses Microsoft Visual C++

4.20 to reproduce the original Win32 executable as closely as possible.

A native SDL2 port is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It supports Kilrathi Saga data and has partial support for the original DOS game data.

No copyrighted game data is included.

All 1,472 identified functions are accounted for: 1,470 have source implementations and the remaining two are compiler-generated jump thunks that must not be recreated manually.

make progress

reports implementation coverage. make report

calculates the

current per-function machine-code similarity to the retail executable; those

scores measure reconstruction fidelity, not gameplay completeness.

Download the archive for your platform from GitHub Releases. Extract its contents into an installed Kilrathi Saga or DOS Wing Commander directory and keep the bundled runtime libraries beside the executable. Start it with that directory as the working directory:

# macOS or Linux

cd /path/to/WC1

./wc1-modern

# Windows PowerShell

cd C:\path\to\WC1

.\wc1-modern.exe

DOS game-data support is partial. Compressed packet resources, OriginFX/AdLib music, and synthesized sound effects work, but other DOS-specific data or behavior may remain unsupported.

Pass --enhanced

to use the optional OpenGL renderer. It draws space objects

at output resolution while retaining the original indexed artwork, palettes,

cockpit, and HUD. The original software renderer remains the default.

./wc1-modern --enhanced

During spaceflight, scroll the mouse wheel up or down to increase or decrease speed.

Clone the submodules first:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Install a C/C++ compiler plus the SDL2 and LZO2 development packages, then run:

make -j modern

The executable is written to out-modern/wc1-modern

(or

out-modern/wc1-modern.exe

on Windows). make run-modern

launches it with

Kilrathi Saga data in data/full

; make run-modern-dos

uses DOS data in

data/dos

.

The default target builds WC1.EXE

with the original MSVC 4.20 toolchain under

wibo:

make -j

To run it, provide a Kilrathi Saga disc image. The Makefile extracts the game data, substitutes the reconstructed executable, downloads DREAMM when needed, and launches it in an emulated Windows 95 environment:

make run WC1_ISO=/path/to/kilrathi-saga.iso

Use make debug WC1_ISO=/path/to/kilrathi-saga.iso

to start DREAMM's debugger.

binary-comp

is required only for

comparison and verification commands:

python3 -m pip install "binary-comp[all] @ git+https://github.com/gg-sl-oss/binary-comp.git"

make compare-func FUNC=perform_maneuver

make verify

These commands require the retail executable at data/full/WC1.ORI.EXE

and the

original-code exports under code-full/

.

Contributor references are intentionally limited to:

- compiler and flag evidence;

- matching patterns;

- disassembly export workflow;

- compilation-unit order;

- function naming policy;

- SDL2 port architecture; and

- release process.

See LICENSE. OpenAI Codex and Anthropic Claude were used during the reconstruction.