Nightdive Studios has revealed Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster.
The original Star Wars Dark Forces was released on PC and Macintosh in 1995. A PlayStation version released a year later. As you can tell from the timing, this was LucasArts’ reaction to Doom, set entirely in the Star Wars universe.
That Doom connection is important to its development, as LucasArts’ staff deliberately sought out to outdo id. And so, LucasArts developer Ray Gresko built Jedi, a proprietary game engine just for this game. Jedi turned out to be very similar to the Build engine used for Duke Nukem 3D.
So, thanks to the Jedi engine, Star Wars Dark Forces supported 3D levels with no discernible limitations. Both Star Wars Dark Forces and Duke Nukem 3D outdid Doom in having real rooms and areas that were laid on top of each other. LucasArts wasn’t able to actually show each level in Star Wars Dark Forces, but would eventually master this tech and use it on their next shooter, Outlaws.
But more importantly, Star Wars Dark Forces is considered the progenitor to the Jedi Knight video game franchise. Some fans do consider it a part of the series, but there’s enough differences between Star Wars Dark Forces and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II to consider it an entirely different franchise.
Now, Star Wars Dark Forces is somewhat available in its original form, in a limited capacity. While it can only be confirmed on PlayStation Network on the PlayStation 3 itself, Star Wars Dark Forces was still being sold there as an individual PlayStation One download. It was originally published to PSN in 2010.
Most gamers, though, likely picked up Star Wars Dark Forces on GOG. This release was developed by GOG themselves, and of course, they use DOSBOX as a wrapper. Because of these qualities, this version of the game isn’t available on MacOS. Ironically, GOG essentially ported the game to Linux for the first time with their version.
Nightdive’s new release promises to have fully remastered scenes, and like every other project they have gone through, should capture the feeling of playing the game in the 1990s, while actually delivering a superior experience.
Nightdive also promises this new version will support 4K 120FPS, trophies and achievements, modern gamepad support, advanced 3D rendering, and more.
Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster will be released on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Windows. Nightdive promises a Steam release, but they’re also likely to bring it to at least GOG, if not Epic Games Store. No release date for now but we’re sure we won’t have to wait long since they have clearly been keeping this under wraps for quite some time.
You can watch the announcement trailer below.
