Star Wars Video Games

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

To put it bluntly, every game which could possibly have Star Wars slapped onto it, exists. Flight simulators. Racers. Rail shooters. Doom clones. MMOs. Age of Empires reskins. An official expansion for The Sims 4. Hell, there's even a Kinect variety game. Here's a few stand-outs:

RPGs

• Knights of the Old Republic: A pair of single player RPGs depicting a Sith war several thousand years before A New Hope. KotOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars video game ever, and was the framework for BioWare's Mass Effect series. Of all the Legends stuff, KotOR appears to still be in good standing with Disney since they continue to borrow from it. The sequel by Obsidian was the original subversive take on the franchise TLJ wanted to be but failed miserably; this sequel, also, failed, less because it was Different, more because those assholes didn't let its devs finish it before dumping it in game-stores. With the restored content mod, KOTOR 2 can unironically be considered the best Star Wars story there is if you overlook the obviously rushed main game development. (And, you know, if you're into that; it was written by someone who admitted to disliking a lot of other Star Wars properties and his personal self-insert fanfic character's either one of the best characters in the franchise or a limitless fountain of preachy criticism, depending on who you ask.)
  • Much much later came a skubtastic MMO simply called "Old Republic" (since you can play as things other than Jedi and Sith) that is the sequel 300 years later, which had a very rough start but stabilized enough to still survive to this day somehow. Though the gameplay is pretty meh due to being an MMO, the storylines are mostly good, with the best of them being some of the best Star Wars stories out there. Even the most traditional and bland story, the Jedi Knight's, is still exciting good fun, and should you choose to play as one in the Shadow of Revan and following expansions, becomes very good and can be summed up as "Chad Thundercock is the best Jedi ever and flaunts the romance ban with his hot redhead fellow Jedi and wins a decades long war singlehandedly". Possibly still canon in the Disney continuity since a lot of things get borrowed or referenced from it. Also the only thing in the EU to still receive new content. Fans often treat these games as canon even if they are technically not, due to being set so long before the films that there aren't many contradictions between canon and legends.
  • Confirmed to be getting a remake, though it is currently unclear if it will actually be part of Disney's Canon or not.

• Star Wars Galaxies: An early MMO, launched after Everquest but before WoW. Galaxies is noteworthy for making force powers a prestige achievement requiring enormous in-game effort to unlock (and with a degree of randomness meaning you might have to just reroll). The first expansion pack added a subgame that's a pretty solid flight game in its own right and the game eventually added an original, fully playable, trading card game that sadly has not yet been implemented in any simulator. Then World of Warcraft hit, Sony panicked and made Jedi a starting class and replaced the skill system with massive level grind, and offered refunds to the raging army of neckbeards. Subscription numbers tanked and never recovered. It would effectively be replaced by The Old Republic, an MMO using the acclaimed KotOR setting. Like most "dead" MMOs that people loved it still lives on through illegal private servers (don't worry, the guys providing it would get busted, not people playing on it).

• Star Wars: Eclipse: Recently announced, this game will be set in the High Republic era. Little else is known as of now, but it had what is probably the most Awesome trailer a Star Wars product has had in at least the last five years or so.　It's supposedly going to come out in 3-5 years, so people are understandably worried that announcing it this early is going to choke the game to death with exaggerated expectations. Doesn't help that the developers got outed for not having the best work culture (though the usual suspects calling for the game's cancellation in response are not in the right either). /tg/ just hopes it's good at this point.

==Action-Adventure / Hack-n-Slash

• Jedi Knight: A series that started of as an early FPS named Dark Forces (so early that it was the time when FPS games were still known as Doom-clones) but Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had the protagonist become a Jedi. The Dark Forces name was dropped in favor of Jedi Knight after this. The series combines surprisingly deep lightsaber combat with standard shooting, though the levels can get very mazy at times. Introduced Kyle Katarn, who despite starting out in a non-EU game ended up so beloved that he entered canon, and the stories aren't bad, though sometimes a bit soap opera-y, especially the occasionally-cringeworthy acting in the FMV sequences in Jedi Knight. There was a Mara Jade expansion, "Mysteries of the Sith", amounting to a new game. The replayability is off the charts thanks to LucasArts' decision to open all three of these games to mods, resulting in fan-made missions several of which were as good as the original (for them, see The Massassi Temple site, still active in all its late-1990s glory). Unfortunately, there has not been a new game since 2003's (Dark Forces 4 : Jedi Knight 3 : Manchester United 0 ) Jedi Academy and likely will never be thanks to Disney. They were recently re-released on modern consoles so at least their existence is acknowledged; between such releases, and the modding community on PC, more people have that chance to play them, though as with many titles of their era technical issues abound.

• Revenge of the Sith: One of the best movie license games of all time, though if that says more about the game or movie license games in general we'll let you decide. The storymode is basically a hack 'n slash but the real star is the versus mode (and boss fights in the story mode) as this is basically the best Star Wars fighting game there is (not that there's much competition).

• The Force Unleashed: A hack 'n slash game featuring Starkiller, Vader's secret apprentice. (Note the reference to the first draft's protagonist.) Starkiller is very skub in his awesome (he moves a falling Star Destroyer with the Force and ultimately beats Vader in a one-on-one fight), with some calling him a Gary Stu. But if you're a gamer all that just makes it a complete power fantasy so, not exactly a minus. Physics are pretty good for its time and enemies can have particularly realistic moments, such as briefly grabbing onto whatever's at hand, including each other, when lifted with the Force. Disregard the Wii version which is hilariously inferior in level design and gameplay (even if it does have some levels and characters that the main console version lacked).
  • The Force Unleashed II: The sequel. Feels more like a demo for a bigger game we never got, and in addition to being rather short, its writing is somewhere between "meh" and "bad". The story is fairly thin in a lot of places, and the protagonist (Starkiller I's clone) is much less engaging than the original, but the graphics are nice, and the gameplay is smooth and mostly satisfying. If you don't mind its shallowness, it's a decent way to kill some time. And it also saw Darth Vader taking a fuckton of Force Lightning from a supercharged Starkiller at the end without dying, which is a great thing to bring up to shut down those annoying "Vader is weak to electricity!" arguments.

• Jedi: Fallen Order: It took them years but finally, EA managed to deliver a Star Wars game that is great on launch without cramming it with microtransactions and lootboxes. Its plot focuses on an unfortunate Jedi renegade between Revenge and A New Hope who's on the hunt for a hidden database that might document all the Force-sensitive individuals in the galaxy. A game inspired primarily by games such as Dark Souls and Uncharted, it's a great action-adventure game in its own right and a must-play for any Star Wars fan. Also notable for making Darth Vader really FUCKING SCARY. As he should be. Confirmed to be getting a sequel in 2023.

Shooters

• Shadows of the Empire: Made on the Nintendo 64 and Windows PC, this was the game part of the massive Everything But The Movie multimedia project of that name. Here you play as Dash Rendar, a scoundrel in a ship like Han Solo working for the Rebellion. Starts during Episode V as a side story; moves on to bridge V and VI. Despite a fanbase that stayed loyal for several years, this game has sadly not aged well at all thanks to the rather peculiar control scheme of the N64 and the graphics having aged like cheap cheese in the sun. Main enemy of the game is a xeno named Xisor who is just a real uppity crime boss (and apparently a prince). The game has an absolutely great opening (at least for its time) where you're flying in a Snowspeeder on Hoth killing Imperials left and right while trying to use the cables to crash the AT-ATs like in the movie. After that the game begins to kinda just carry on with awkward controls. Notable for having a soundtrack (we DID say, "Everything But The Movie") not by Williams but equally as good.

• Bounty Hunter: Featuring Jango Fett as the protagonist and tells the story of how he ended up being the clone template. A third person action adventure game that makes the player FEEL like a Mandalorian. A particular highlight is the first level of the second chapter set on Coruscant as no other game before or since has allowed the player to explore Coruscant to this extent. 1313 was meant to do that even better, but fuck Disney. The Playstation (2) version was hideous as compared with the Gamecube version, but they made nice with those PS owners recently by porting an upgrade to PS4. Actually got fairly mediocre reviews at the time of its release, but time seems to have been kind to it. It is, however, infamously hard.

• Republic Commando: An FPS that has the player command a squad of commandos. Its a great shooter but unfortunately, it never received a sequel and to make things worse, ended on a cliffhanger. The second act of the game, set entirely on a drifting Acclamator-class assault ship is particularly memorable and highly atmospheric. If one can look past outdated graphics, it is one of the best Star Wars games ever made and holds its own in the FPS-genre as a whole. It is also notably more violent and grimdark than Star Wars usually is. The soundtrack is also quite noteworthy, while it does make great use of John Williams music as most Star Wars games do, it also has its own original and rather unique soundtrack consisting of Mandalorian warchants which you should seriously go and listen to.

• Star Wars Battlefront II (2005): Not to be confused with the one released by EA in 2017. Solid Battlefield-clone with a Star Wars paintjob from the new-defunct Pandemic studio (fuck you, EA) in 2005 told from the perspective of a clone trooper that survived all the way up to the battle of Hoth, with a very down to earth, boots on the ground approach. Also, just being thrown into random matches as a soldier because fun. Despite some issues, it remains the high point of the Battlefront series as well as the entire PS2 era, and on PC still has fans via an active modding community to this day. There is of course also the original one but the second one pretty much completely overshadowed it.

• Star Wars Battlefront II (2017): The one by EA. You've probably heard everything important. An absolute mess at launch due to its real money-currency-fueled, lootbox-heavy progression system, so much so that it started discussion even on government level about gambling mechanics that continues to this day. A comment by EA defending that became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yet despite all this, two years later, the game is arguably one of the best Star Wars experiences one can have and an Anakin-level redemption story. Like the previous Battlefront II, it completely overshadowed its predecessor. The same cannot be said by the campaign which turns a "Imperial Story" into a really bland defection story with really really bad writing.

Everything Else

• Empire at War: Made by the original developers of Command and Conquer, it is the most notable strategy game to have come out of Star Wars. Among other things, features three different modes of play: ground battles, space battles, and the galactic conquest map. Though ground battles are a bit meh, the space battles are great and the galactic conquest is certainly more interesting than only playing random skirmish matches. Even though it's over 15 years old, it has a very active modding community. Top mods include Republic at War, which changes the game's Galactic Civil War setting to Clone Wars; Thrawn's Revenge, which adds 4X features and covers a later timeframe; Awakening of the Rebellion, which adds depth and overhauls ground combat; and Remake, which brings the game up to modern standards in terms of visuals. Unfortunately, no great 40k mod. Currently the biggest mods in the as of 2021 are Thrawn's Revenge: Imperial Civil War, Fall of the Republic, and the upcoming Thrawn's Revenge: Imperial Reign.

• X-Wing (and TIE Fighter): A series of Wing Commander clones released in the 90's. While badly dated today, they were the best fighter sims of their time, and if you can get past the highly primitive graphics some people still consider them to be the best to this day. Why? The mission scripting and AI are top notch for the genre and absolutely brutal to fight against; on all but the simplest missions you're almost guaranteed to fail the first time and eventually develop a sixth sense about the fighters threatening your objective vs the fighters just there to kill you (ignore those, learn to be hard to hit). Interestingly, TIE Fighter is largely seen as the best of the series while the N64 era Rogue Squadron game is seen as being far more visually modern but a largely inferior sequel. Did we mention you had to use a flight stick controller basically made for these games to really do well at them?

• Monopoly Star Wars: Its Star Wars Monopoly. With 90's FMV that plays for every square you land on. On floppy disks. Considered fucking amazing at the time, it's too strange and tabletop to not mention. Also one of the last pre-Prequel things released.

• Super Star Wars: A heavily modified retelling of the original trilogy (what, you don't remember how Luke chased down the Sandcrawler and murdered all the Jawas as well as their giant rat god in order to rescue R2-D2?) that was one of the ways to say "hard as fuck" by namedropping a game prior to Dark Souls existing. Amusing for the insanity of the added content in order to make a platformer sidescrolling beat'em'up as well as how neckbeardy you have to be to punish yourself trying to beat it without cheating. Sequels were made for Empire and Jedi, which slightly dialled back the difficulty.

• Star Wars: Yoda Stories: A game geared for kids, released the same year as Monopoly above. Players play as Luke sometime after Empire Strikes Back, although an odd alternate version where Han is sometimes free from carbonite and Boba Fett and sometimes is not. They are assigned a quest by Yoda which requires them to traverse one or more procedurally generated planets doing whatever odd crap Yoda felt was necessary, including sometimes fighting Vader. Received middling scores as a PC release, with some individuals HATING the game and using it as a benchmark for how much they hate something when comparing the two, although to be fair that is because distributors tried to sell it like a full game when in reality it's supposed to just be freebie software that came with other purchases and was meant to go with solitaire and space pinball as default games on a computer to waste time with. It has lapsed into obscurity thanks to even those reviewers largely being forgotten on the modern internet. Noteworthy for being played on a grid with simultaneous turn-based movement with all enemies and NPCs on a screen, feeling very much like a desktop game at times, since it uses the Win32 API (like Minesweeper and Solitare) and was almost certainly written in visual basic. A simple puzzle game, where getting blocked in a corner without enough space to pass the time by an idiot NPC is more dangerous than any foe.

• Star Wars: Racers : The defining podracing game and the only thing done on Episode I that no one can complain about. Displaced the Wipeout, F-Zero, and Mario Kart franchises as the must-have console racing game during its prime. One of the best video game this franchise has ever offer. Even if you do not like the universe, you have to try it.

The Unmade

But, for every Star Wars game that's been made, there was another that didn't make it. Among the more notable cancelled and scrapped games:

• Return of the Jedi: Ewok Adventure: The very first known cancelled Star Wars game, and really only worth mentioning for that reason. Considering it would have been extremely primitive (as early 80s games generally were), and had folks playing as arguably the least liked part of the Original Trilogy, it's probably just as well we didn't get this one.

• Star Wars: Jedi Knight III: Brink of Darkness (AKA Dark Forces IV): Planned sequel to Jedi Outcast and its spin-off Jedi Academy, and presumably intended to be the end of Kyle Katarn's arc. Not much more is known about it; not even whether the player would get to be Kyle Katarn again - or Jaden again, or someone else altogether. It seems LucasArts by then had suffered Kyle Katarn/New Jedi Order fatigue, and ditched the project in favor of exploring new things.

• Star Wars: Dark Squadron and Chewbacca Game: The TIE Fighter to Rogue Squadron's X-Wing (somewhat literally, given that you'd be piloting TIE vehicles), it was ditched in favor of a Chewbacca solo game...that also got axed. So basically Lucasarts bet on the wrong horse.

• Battlefront III: Sequel to the 2005 Battlefront II. Came very close to coming out (arguably closer than any other game on this list), but was cancelled at the last minute in part because the studio making it was in its death-throes. A lot of what was planned/made for Battlefront III would end up being used for a spin-off game centering around "X2", a clone of some unknown Force-Sensitive.
  • Battlefront IV: Seemed to have been intended as a great big "What If...?" type set-up, where the events of the Star Wars saga play out very differently. Concept art shows off everything from a Dark Side Obi-Wan to a redeemed Vader who lives to an unburnt Vader to an Emperor Vader to...well, you get the idea.

• Knights of the Old Republic III: Because these sorts of things generally come in threes, there was indeed a planned third Knights of the Old Republic game, but it didn't pan out. That we got SWTOR instead is just one of the reasons that game is Skub.

• Star Wars: Battle of the Sith Lords: A Darth Maul video game. Well, sort of Darth Maul. Actually a descendant of Maul who is basically another Maul for all intents and purposes. Why descendant? Because George Lucas wanted a Maul/Darth Talon team-up, and making the "Maul" a descendant was the best way the devs could think to do it. Sadly never materialized, so we still don't have a Darth Maul solo video game despite him being a fan-favorite for over 20 years running.

• Star Wars: 1313: Probably the most infamous example here. Was going to focus on a young bounty hunter (who then got changed to a young Boba Fett to better lure in the fans), going into Coruscant's scum-filled underworld. Basically billed as "Uncharted meets Star Wars". Disney getting the franchise and LucasArts' demise meant this game got cancelled, getting relations between Star Wars fans and Disney off to a wonderful start.