Star Wars: Dark Forces

Star Wars: Dark Forces is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by LucasArts. It was released in 1995 for MS-DOS and Macintosh, and in 1996 for the PlayStation. The story is set in the Star Wars expanded universe and begins shortly before the original Star Wars film, before flashing forward to a year after the film's events. The game's protagonist and playable character is Kyle Katarn, a mercenary working on behalf of the Rebel Alliance who discovers the Galactic Empire's secret Dark Trooper Project, which involves the development of a series of powerful new battle droids and power-armored stormtroopers. Dark Forces uses the Jedi game engine, which was developed specifically for the game. The engine adds gameplay features that were uncommon to the first-person shooter genre at the time of release, including level designs with multiple floors, and the ability to look up and down. Upon release, the PC and Macintosh versions of the game received generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised its level design and technological advances, though the PlayStation version was criticized for having poor graphics and slow frame rates. The game also did well financially, selling almost 1 million copies in the United States by 1999. The game's success launched the Star Wars: Jedi Knight series, beginning with the direct sequel Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II in 1997. A continually developed community made port entitled The Force Engine reached 1.0 on December 20, 2022. A remastered version of the game developed by Nightdive Studios was released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on February 28, 2024.