Wing Commander: Privateer

Basic gameplay consists of flying and fighting with the ship in a star system, jumping from system to system via jump points, landing on bases or planets, interacting with people (mainly talking) and buying or selling equipment or commodities. The Gemini sector is divided into quadrants, each containing several star systems, most of them with planets or bases that may be visited. Unlike other games in the series, the gameplay is primarily in the sandbox style of play.

When flying, the main view is a first-person look from inside the cockpit at the screens (HUDs) and the space before the ship. Space combat simulation is similar to the style of other Wing Commander games of its time. On planets and bases, a static overview/first-person-view is used to show the rooms and interact with people. Menus are used for buying, selling, or taking missions from the mission computer.

The game begins with a mysterious drone attacking ships in the system. When Burrows lands on the planet New Detroit, a man named Sandoval hires him and gives him a mysterious artifact. On his return, Burrows finds the man is dead. Burrows seeks information about the artifact, eventually meeting Dr. Monkhouse, a xenoarchaeologist on Palan.

Monkhouse tells Burrows the artifact was made by an ancient technologically advanced race, the Steltek. The artifact is half of a map; Monkhouse has the rest. Burrows agrees to explore the area in the map.

Privateer was very popular, appearing in second place in PC Data's list of best-selling DOS games for September 1993, and first place in Computer Gaming World's "Playing Lately?" reader survey for November 1993. The magazine in 1993 enjoyed the game's less-structured storyline with Ultima-like "real moral choices", but criticized the "sophomoric" writing. Computer Gaming World recommended the "deluxe, high-end product" to those with "486 machines sporting fast video cards and vast hard drives".

A 1994 survey of strategic space games set in the year 2000 and later gave the game three-plus stars out of five, calling it a "pretty exciting game", but criticizing "an unusual number of incompatibilities with sound cards and joysticks, even for such a complex product". The magazine in May 1994 approved of Righteous Fire's "fun" storyline—as open-ended as Privateer while adding "new ship elements"—and its tight continuity with the original game. Despite reporting a "lack of challenge" for experienced players, the magazine recommended the expansion to "privateers who just can't get enough of life on the edge of the Wing Commander universe".