30 Years Ago, The Most Pivotal 'Star Wars' Game Predicted The Modern Age
It's a 'Dark Forces' world, we're just living in it.
In 1995, loving Star Wars almost exclusively meant you were into games, comics, and books. Sure, liking the original Star Wars movie trilogy in 1995 was fairly mainstream. But, being a hardcore Star Wars fan in 1995 had almost nothing to do with movies at all, because the films were a decade old, and the whispers of the prequels seemed too good to be true. And so, during this strangely open-ended time for the faraway galaxy, the LucasArts games were the next best thing to experiencing a new Star Wars adventure.
During this time, one Star Wars game was not like the others at all. As a dark, gritty, and hardcore first-person shooter, Dark Forces was a new direction for Star Wars gaming, and the franchise as a whole. Thirty years ago, on March 8, 1995, LucasArts released Dark Forces for MS-DOS computers and Power Macs. Today, it still holds up as a great game, but what’s more fascinating is the way that the content and aesthetics of Dark Forces influenced the most critically acclaimed Star Wars installments of the 21st century.
A standard briefing in 'Dark Forces.' (Screenshot from the remastered version.)
Dark Forces puts the player in the boots of blaster-for-hire Kyle Katarn, a guy who begrudgingly starts taking on clandestine missions for the Rebel Alliance. In the first mission of the game, you’re sent to an Imperial facility to steal the Death Star plans. After that, Mon Mothma puts you on a series of missions to track down and stop the Empire’s latest new super weapon program; the Dark Trooper.
Sound familiar? In 2016, Rogue One’s entire plot was about rough-and-tough Rebel agents stealing the Death Star plans, sent on the mission by Mon Mothma. In 2020, The Mandalorian rebooted the Dark Trooper and pitted Luke Skywalker against a battalion of them. Finally, nearly everything about Andor feels like a direct descendent of the blaster-fire action of Dark Forces. In fact, if you watch the newest trailer for Andor Season 2, following characters walking into rooms, with the camera behind their backs as they unholster their blasters, it’s almost like gameplay from Dark Forces come to life. Meanwhile, the 2018 film Solo almost felt like one giant tribute to Dark Forces, complete with complicated heists and hostile environments.
But, back in 1995, centering an entire Star Wars game on gaming mechanics that didn’t involve flying a starfighter or swinging a lightsaber was not only unheard of, it was risky. Arguably, at that time, the fandom had yet to fetishize the gunplay aspects of Star Wars. All the most successful games up until that point focused on the more obvious science fiction aspects of the franchise, so much so that some games were kind of remixes of each other.
The box art for 'Dark Forces' (1995).
Case in point, the success of the starfighter simulator X-Wing led to the game TIE Fighter, all of which, in a sense, inspired the arcade-style Rebel Assault games. Even a year after Dark Forces, the N64 game Shadows of the Empire split the difference, giving Dash Rendar (another hired gun!) levels that alternated between on-the-ground shooting, and flying popular Star Wars vehicles.
What made Dark Forces so great was its commitment to one style of gameplay; this was a first-person shooter in the style of Doom and made no bones about trying to be anything else. The player wasn’t rewarded with fancy cutscenes, or the ability to fly a familiar Star Wars ship. Instead, everything here attempted to simulate what the quotidian life of a Rebel mercenary would be like. This was, at the time, the most “realistic” Star Wars game that anyone could possibly play. In 1997, Dark Forces II kind of jettisoned what made the first game unique by rebranding as Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. In that game, we learn that Kyle had latent Force powers, something that became a crucial part of the character’s biography going forward.
And yet, Dark Forces lost something when it brought in Force powers. For this reason, the first game remains a purer and more interesting gaming experience.
Because, by sticking with the on-the-ground action, Dark Forces opened up an entire subgenre of Star Wars — as a niche corner that was destined to morph into the default mode for the entire franchise.
