After all the fun of reverse engineering, development and testing, the first public Alpha release of OpenPrivateer is finally available.

OpenPrivateer is a modern reimplementation of Wing Commander: Privateer, built around the original game data with a strong focus on authentic behavior, portability, preservation and modding.
The goal is to faithfully reproduce the original Privateer experience first, while keeping enhancements and new features clearly separated.

What's already in the Alpha:

• Privateer and Righteous Fire support
• Supports the original PRIV.EXE command-line switches:
  -K (skips the intro)
  -Bxx (overrides the base/planet you start on)
  -Dxxxxx (overrides the amount of credits you start with)
• Original bases, trading, ship dealer and mission systems
• Main story plot and generated random missions
• Spaceflight and combat
• Original cutscenes, dialogue and music
• Original DOS savegame loading and writing
• Classic, Enhanced and Modern experience modes
• Multiple ships and hired wingmen
• Navigation map and extended Wing Commander universe support
• Content overrides and translation support
• OPL2, SoundFont, MIDI Mapper and CD music (WAV/FLAC/MP3 support)
• Optional xBRZ scaling, CRT filtering and color grading
• Windows, Linux and macOS support
• Dedicated client/server multiplayer with PvP and PvE
• Keyboard, mouse, joystick and HOTAS support
• Auto Updater

Please keep in mind that all non-vanilla features are locked out of the Classic experience mode, you will only be able to see or access them in the Enhanced or Modern mode. To change experience mode for now, you have to open the debug menu using the tilde ~ key (left of your 1 key) because there currently is no other UI for these settings. The Alpha release relies on the debug menu but the Beta release will add a proper UI for all these options.

The new UI screens are currently using their default theme, which is why they are looking pretty unsexy at the moment.
This will be changed in one of the next releases.

You can access the multiple ships / hire wingmen screen using the S key on the launch pad

You can access the new game control screen using the K key in the ALT+O options menu

The auto updater will check once per day if there is a new version available and will show a message on the title screen. The area is clickable in that case.

This is an Alpha, so bugs, glitches and unfinished features are expected.
That's also why I'm releasing it now: actual players are going to uncover things that development and automated testing won't.

Discord and downloads for Windows (x86_64), Linux (x86_64 + arm64) and macOS (arm64):
https://discord.gg/5H3vW2STqW
https://openprivateer.org/#downloads

Multiplayer is already mostly functional, although mission progression is not implemented there yet. Instructions how to run client and server can be found on the https://openprivateer.org/#multiplayer website.

Every time you start OpenPrivateer, it will create its directory structure and place readme.txt files in each folder. I recommend that you take a look at the readme.txt file that gets created in the same directory as the OpenPrivateer executable, it will explain where you have to put your MS-DOS savegames and other files.

Full instructions copied from the website:

• Download and extract OpenPrivateer.
• Copy the required original Privateer game files into the OpenPrivateer folder: (the GOG version ships the TRE files in a GAME.GOG archive, extract them with 7-Zip)
  PRIV.TRE / INITCFG.PAK for Privateer
  RF.TRE / INITRF.PAK for Righteous Fire Expansion
• Start OpenPrivateer.
• The required folders and README files are created automatically when OpenPrivateer starts.
• Consult the README.TXT file that now exists in the same folder as the executable.
• Start a New Game or copy an existing save into the savegame folder.

Feedback, bug reports and testing are very welcome. If you need any help or you are stuck, let me know here or in the Discord server. Have fun my friends!

Disclaimer:
OpenPrivateer does not contain any copyrighted Origin/EA game assets. You need your own copy of Wing Commander: Privateer and provide the original game data files.
Anthropic Claude was used during the reconstruction.