Back in the early 90s, first-person shooters (FPS) were considered less defined as a genre, and more typically thought of as Doom and subsequent “Doom Clones”. One such game that helped put the genre on the map and expand on what Doom brought forth was 1995’s Star Wars: Dark Forces. 30 years later, the evil Dark side has returned in Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster. Let’s see how Nightdive Studios have helped our hero Kyle Katarn age into the modern era.
Mysterious Forces At Work
Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster is set just before the first Star Wars film (now known as Episode IV – A New Hope). Given Dark Forces released in 1995, it largely operates within the canon of the original trilogy. The game starts with the Rebel Alliance hiring protagonist Kyle Katarn to steal plans for the evil Empire’s latest weapon, the “Death Star”. Kyle sees himself opposing the Empire’s Lord Vader, embroiling himself in a scheme over the development of a new and powerful Stormtrooper soldier called “The Dark Trooper”.
The story is told mostly through the start of mission briefings, along with a few hand-drawn cutscenes. The game has a few appearances from established franchise characters such as Darth Vader and Jabba the Hutt, but mostly stars original characters. The narrative is at just the right scale to feel like a Star Wars jam without messing with the established Star Wars canon of the time.
Star Wars: Dark Forces weaves a faithful Star Wars story that feels like it could have fit in with the original films. My main issue is that there isn’t enough to it, as it feels very small in scope. Later films also can make this game’s story feel awkward compared to the current franchise’s canon, which may be jarring to newer players who are more familiar with the franchise in its modern state.
Many Moons Have Passed
Star Wars: Dark Forces was released during the period when every first-person shooter was dubbed “A Doom Clone” due to its similarity to the original Doom, which was released a little over a year before. It is an FPS set in maze-like environments which look like locations in the Star Wars universe. You’ll spend most levels looking for colored key cards while using laser and plasma-based weapons to shoot Stormtroopers and other Star Wars-themed rogues. There’s also the standard item pickups like night vision goggles or health regenerating packs to aid you during missions.
The game is set across 14 missions and has a runtime of around 10 hours for those unfamiliar with the original game. There’s also a bonus mission in the extras menu, which was a prototype-style level but dubbed too difficult for the main release. All in all, the game offers a reasonable amount of runtime for a classic FPS from the 90s.
Controls are standard for the genre; general movement, fire button, and a jump button, which was actually pretty new to FPS games in 1995 and helped to separate Dark Forces from contemporaries like Doom. Enemy and weapon variety is quite limited, partly due to the much smaller scope of the Star Wars franchise at the time. You’ll be mostly blasting Stormtroopers with the iconic Stormtrooper Rifle. Fortunately it feels perfect to use, with just the right mix of kickback and sense of gratification through sound and visuals to keep gun combat fun.
What’s Old Is New
It’s worth remembering that Doom was released in 1993, Doom 2 in 1994 and Duke Nukem 3D in 1996, putting Star Wars: Dark Forces firmly between several defining FPS titans. It ran on a custom-built engine that handled 3D level creation better than its predecessors. Locations looked far more authentic to Star Wars, compared to the more confusing maze crawls of its contemporaries. Dark Forces may have been a licensed title, but it hit with all the might of the Empire on its best day. Although Star Wars: Dark Forces was never the most original game even for its time, it is still fun, engaging, and a fantastic time capsule from an era that most have forgotten. The original version of the game doesn’t run the best anymore, but thankfully, Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster developer Nightdive has you covered.
Nightdive has a knack for remastering games with little quality-of-life improvements and tweaks to make them feel modern, while also oozing enough nostalgia to make them feel authentic. One such welcome QOL improvement is that free aiming is now much more intuitive. The game also features some nice extras, like the option to switch between classic or “modern” graphics, plus a rather in-depth gallery with behind-the-scenes content. As they did with their fantastic remastering of Turok 3: Shadows of Oblivion, Nightdive has once again fired up their Kex Engine to produce something that is very playable today without chipping away at the integrity of the original game.
The game is immediately bootable now rather than making you tweak with DOSBox. You can download the game for PC or play it on modern consoles, which is welcome for a game which only ever received a console port to the original Playstation. Sadly there isn’t a quick save/quick load option like many similar FPS titles, so you’re stuck with the rather archaic “lives” system. Still, Nightdive has done another fantastic job making an old game feel more modern than it originally was.
Giving The Old Gal A New Coat Of Paint
Though Nightdive gave it a bit of a facelift, Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster is very much a remaster of a product of its time. The environments are still somewhat bland and blocky, and the character models are still older-looking sprites, but the game retains a certain charm of the era. Nightdive has also done a fantastic job of redrawing the textures and replacing them with higher quality ones.
Cutscenes have also been redrawn, though if I’m honest, I wasn’t a fan of the redraws. They felt too clean and lacked the grit of the original cutscenes, instead feeling like cheap mobile game-styled cutscenes. Given the high level of cheese these cutscenes were originally written with, it doesn’t make for the best cocktail of modern and old.
If you like the Star Wars film soundtracks, you’ll get what you want here and more. Composer Clink Bajakian took many cues from John Williams’ film scores in creating the soundtrack to Dark Forces, providing compositions with a similar sci-fi fantasy feel that fits the series along with some arrangements of classic Star Wars tunes. It’s worth noting that the music doesn’t change based on context, which does lead to amusing situations where epic music is playing in full swing while wandering empty/cleared areas.
Verdict
Once again, Nightdive has released an official, definitive way to play another classic FPS with Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster. It may seem like a basic FPS even by the standards of its original era, but it still looks and feels authentically Star Wars and makes for a fun as heck playthrough.
STAR WARS: THE DARK FORCES IS RECOMMENDED
Purchase: Humble Store (PC)
If you are looking for another retro first-person shooter, check out our review of System Shock (2023).
Many thanks go to Nightdive Studios for a PC review code for Star Wars: The Dark Forces Remaster.
Pride of utopia & greatest thing ever, I found the One Piece, Collected the Dragon Balls & won the Mortal Kombat Tournament in one night, it was quiet for me that night! Follow me on Twitter @powahdunk
