Dark ForcesChangedStar WarsGames Forever

Nearly three decades ago , Dark Forces make the PC with all the firepower of a fully armed and operational battle station — and in doing so serve revolutionise gaming , Star Wars or otherwise . But even after it exchange the genre as we knew it , its legacy has persisted ; its view of the galaxy far , far away has continue to determine Star Wars to this very day , even as itreturns to PC and consolestoday ina fresh remaster .

Developed by LucasArts — which up to this point in time had balanced bringing Star Wars to life story across games like X - extension or the console pic adaptations , as well as iconic risky venture secret plan series like Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle — Dark Forces present a major first for the studio . Although the likes of the aforementioned X - Wing , the Star Wars arcade game , or X - Wing ’s unbelievable follow up TIE Fighter had all given Star Wars devotee gaming adventures from the first - person perspective of a starfighter cockpit , Dark Forces was the very first Star Wars game in the boomingfirst - someone shooter genre , at the time generalize by the the like of Wolfenstein and Doom .

It did n’t just get Star Wars skin to what was familiar to the writing style , however . LucasArts push FPSes forward in Dark Forces across multiple technological front end with the Jedi game locomotive engine , developed for Dark Forces , bringing everything from the ability for map to have multiple layers of building with level stack on top of each other , to now - give standards like the ability to jump or look up and down while shot , or even former atmospherical effects effects like weed and smog . Although not a true 3D engine , Jedi gave Dark Forces some other in - secret plan three-D elements , both in stage blueprint and in aesthetic elements like attend its hoagy ship , the Moldy Crow , appear in various stratum , just over a year before the release of Quake would exchange the FPS genre even further with a full leap into 3D.

Image: Nightdive Studios

Between all that , and its cinematic layer — Dark Forces had both sprite - based and nascent 3DCG inter - mission cutscenes to secernate its story , rare for the run - and - artillery nature of the FPS genre at the time , as well as synergistic medicine that could pick off and interchange the soundtrack playing based on player activeness — Dark Forces represented a turning point in play . It set the point for the evolution of one of its most vital genres over the mid-90s , and one that the Galax urceolata far , far away would revisittime and clip againin the generations since . But that aforementioned tarradiddle was arguably just as influential to Star Wars as what Dark Forces did for video game at big . Although there were notable exception , up to this power point the vast legal age of Star Wars game had put you in the shoes of familiar hero — Luke , Han , Leia , the picture stars you knew and loved — and more often than not they were retell those stories you know and loved , with the occasional spare flourish or substitute imagining . Dark Forces did none of that , casting gamers into the persona of a make young character , for a brand new story set around the time of A New Hope .

That character was Kyle Katarn , a mercantile — flesh out even further in Dark Forces ’ manual of arms as a former Imperial Academy alumnus who had been lead on by the Empire into believing his parents had been murdered by Rebel operatives , until he meet a double agent identify Jan Ors that would become his gun - for - hire partner — charter by the Rebel Alliance to undergo a major undertaking : steal the plans to the Death Star . Although the Star Wars flourish Universe would eventually retcon Kyle ’s mission to one small partof many layersto acquiring those plan , the rest of his tarradiddle , picking back up a year after he was first hired , stay just as crucial and influential .

take once again to inquire a new experimental weapons program being developed by Imperial General Rom Mohc — the titulary dark-skinned forces in the automated Dark Trooper initiative — Kyle ’s mystical missions took him not just into the myriad layers of the Imperial Regime , but into the murky side of Star Wars ’ extragalactic nebula , from the spicery patronage to the criminal band of amplitude Orion and Hutt consortium . For every foreign mission in Dark Forces about explicitly infiltrating and striking against majestic targets , Kyle ’s investigation look at him to sides of the Star Wars galaxy that had never been in the spotlight before , all under the screen of darkness in a worldly concern ofspycraft and smuggling , knives in the dark away from the sheer heroics the plucky Alliance and its poster fighter accomplished in A New Hope .

Image: Nightdive Studios

Image: Nightdive Studios

Kyle was a hero perfectlysuited for that skullduggery , too . He was n’t exactly rationalise from the same cloth as Han Solo , even though there were obvious analog . Han quickly becomes a more traditional swaggering hero in the film , but Kyle was far from the all the way - cut Rebel hero , or the scoundrel with a heart of gold . He was a man hurt by the lies distinguish to him by the Empire , and craving to manoeuver his hate somewhere — he was n’t necessarily fighting for the Rebels because he believed in there drive , but because he could enact his retribution against the Empire . He played in the shadows and a dark roach of the galaxy because that was where he was best accommodate , to fury and interrogation and the dirty employment the Rebel Alliance hired people to do to keep their hands unobjectionable .

Kyle wouldgo on to evolvewhen the game ’s huge success necessitated a continuation in Jedi Knight : Dark Forces II , which , as the title connote , would see Kyle explore and embrace his unnamed bequest as the descendant of a Jedi , bringing him onto a more traditionally heroic way ; he would even eventually go on to dish as a Jedi Master in Luke Skywalker ’s New Jedi Order . But even then , for a lot of that journey , Kyle ’s struggle between the darkness inside him that first became well-defined in the original biz , and his pull to do goodness in the coltsfoot , ran throughout his arc . He may have become a kind of patchwork of Star Wars heroes along the way , but the idiosyncrasy that made him uniquely Kyle were there from the start , and gave Star Wars an ill at ease hero unlike few we ’d seen up to that percentage point .

Kyle himself is no longer Star Wars canon — both his most famous missions in the original Dark Forces have been beak apart and handed off to other Hero at other points in time to take claim of . But the legacy of Dark Forces , and of its protagonist , are still vital to our geographic expedition of Star Wars to this sidereal day . It ’s not just in the artistic or logistic element contemporary canyon has lifted — like The Mandalorianexploring the Dark Troopersin its storyline with Moff Gideon , or the Moldy Crow ’s model of ship , the HWK-290 light bottom , appearing across cartoon strip and miniatures games — but Star Wars is still fascinated with exploring the shadows of its macrocosm , and the form of people who do the work in those shadows its heroes typically do n’t . From Din Djarin to Cassian Andor ( arguably the New Kyle , right down to the fact he employ Kyle ’s blaster of choice in Andor ) , Star Wars ’ current stories are infused with people who operate outside of the distinctive circles of its heroes , soldier of fortune and guerillas who have no qualms about how they enact their personal vendettas , against the Empire or otherwise . Dark Forces present us the world that underbelly of rotation thrived in that we now see explored at the pump of Star Wars ’ current major stories , and as much as Han inspired him , Kyle now acts the inspiration for the figures of those narration .

Image: Nightdive Studios

Image: Nightdive Studios

Now , for the first time in years , gamers across PC and cabinet can revisit Dark Forces in sweet light withtoday ’s re - release of the game , remastered by Nightdive Studios — withearly indications signal toa remaster that faithfully clean up and give the same compelling macrocosm that first arrived 29 years ago , as if we were playing our owned soften recollections of how Dark Forces seem and finger all those years in the past . In giving us this lucidness of purpose — to borrow a twist of idiom from another murky revolutionist following in Kyle ’s footsteps — to revisit Dark Forces in as faithful a agency as possible , we can see even more distinctly just how important it and Kyle were to Star Wars at the time , and go on to be today .

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Din DjarinGalactic EmpireJediMoff GideonRebelStar WarsWindows games

Image: Nightdive Studios