Games › Star Wars: Dark Forces
Star Wars: Dark Forces 2024
Star Wars: Dark Forces is a first-person shooter video game made by LucasArts and released in 1995 for MS-DOS and Macintosh, with a 1996 release for the PlayStation. The game takes place within the Star Wars expanded universe, starting just before the events of the original Star Wars film and moving forward to a year after that movie’s conclusion. Kyle Katarn is the main character and player avatar, a mercenary who works for the Rebel Alliance and uncovers the Galactic Empire's secret Dark Trooper Project. This initiative involves creating advanced battle droids and power-armored stormtroopers.
The game runs on the Jedi engine, a custom-built system designed specifically for this title. That engine introduced several innovations to the first-person shooter genre, such as multi-level maps and the ability to look up and down during gameplay.
Reviews for the PC and Mac versions were mostly positive, with critics praising its level design and technical improvements. The PlayStation version received criticism due to low-quality visuals and slow performance. Financially, the game was a success, selling nearly 1 million copies in the U.S. by 1999. It led to the creation of the Star Wars: Jedi Knight franchise, beginning with Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II released in 1997.
A fan-made modification called The Force Engine achieved 1.0 on December 20, 2022. Nightdive Studios later produced a remastered version of the game, which launched on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on February 28, 2024.
Crew
- Director
- Daron Stinnett
- Designer
- Daron Stinnett, Ray Gresko, Justin Chin
- Programmer
- Daron Stinnett, Ray Gresko, Winston Wolff
- Artist
- Justin Chin, Collette Michaud
- Writer
- Justin Chin
- Music
- Clint Bajakian
Details
- Developer
- LucasArts
- Publisher
- LucasArts
- Platforms
- MS-DOS, Mac OS, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
- Modes
- Single-player
- Engine
- Jedi
- Series
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight
