When DOOM originally came out Star Wars fans were quick to think how cool a first-person-shooter Star Wars video game would be. Lucas Arts seemed to understand this as they created their own DOOM clone in Star Wars Dark Forces for the PC (DOS), Mac OS and original PlayStation. But it wasn’t simply a quick DOOM cash-grab clone like so many were, it was instead a fantastic trip through the Star Wars universe with lasting implications as its own legendary series as well as direct influence in the overall Star Wars mythos. So, nearly 30-yeares later Nightdive Studios has seen it fit to bring us a remastering of this classic boomer-shooter that many younger Star Wars fans might have missed out on.
The story is far from simple as was typical for the era and helps to build depth to the overall Star Wars story with the introduction of Kyle Katarn, one of the most beloved Jedi from the extended universe. Katarn is a character that fans have been demanding for decades to shift into the official Star Wars canon. Although in Star Wars Dark Forces, Katarn is talented smuggler in the vein of Han Solo, he has yet to find his true purpose as a force sensitive and future Jedi Knight. Kataran, a former Imperial Officer and now Rebel for hire mercenary has been tasked with obtaining the plans for the Death Star. a very imporat piece of Star Wars lore.
It that weren’t big enough those plans only play a small role in the first mission of the story and serves to form Katarn’s connection to the Rebel Alliance. The real story revolves around the creation and deployment of the new Imperial Dark Troopers and Kyle’s mission to destroy them before they can become a threat to the burgeoning Rebel Alliance and their fight. The story itself is isolated from the grander Star Wars canon that is happening during the same period, but major characters do appear from time to time to interact with Kyle and company.
While Dark Forces might look like your typical DOOM clone from the era, it’s anything but. The basic DOOM layout is here with Kyle being dropped into a huge arena-like level with the player tasked to complete a single or number of objectives. This isn’t something like CoD or modern shooters with linear paths and large set-pieces though. Instead, you have free range of the entire map from the outset and how you complete your tasks is up to the player. This really encourages exploration, something fans of the Star Wars universe will really enjoy. In fact, the exploration is key to the experience as LucasArts wanted this to feel like an adventure game and not just like a mindless FPS.
Gameplay on the other-hand takes the typical DOOM formula and works to improve on it in a number of ways. Dark Forces was built on its own custom Jedi Engine that allowed much more freedom than the sprite-based DOOM could. This new engine allowed 3D objects to populate the world and thanks to this lets you to look up and down, a huge game changer at the time. You also have the ability to jump and swim through various environments. These new features allowed Dark Forces to feel more like an adventure game with all sorts of engine-related puzzles and not simply like a speed-shooter like DOOM with a few key-cards to collect like its counterparts tended to be.
Combat featured all the staples from the Star Wars world with blasters and thermal detonators in play, as well as some all new weapons to play with. Each weapon was also unique in that it featured a secondary fire mode for added fun. The movement is also fast-and-furious with you being able to almost skate around stages at a blistering pace, making speedruns of the game something unique to experience. When us old-folks talk about the classic FPS games from “back in the day” we are almost certainly thinking about Dark Forces as the peak of the era, and for good reason.
Couple the smooth and fast movement with responsive weapons that allow for multiple use cases and a story that deeper than anything at the time in the FPS space, and you have a nearly perfect boomer-shooter that fans still play to this day with modifications and updates. And all of those things still apply to this remaster that allows anyone to jump back into the game without the need to jump though hoops to get an old game running on modern hardware.
Nightdive have done a fantastic job upgrading the visuals and the FMV sequences in Dark Forces Remaster. There is a reason the story of Kyle Katarn has resonated with fans for nearly 30-years of gaming and reminds us of a time when storytelling was just as important as pushing the boundaries of the current technology. There are so many fantastic looking games that have come and gone in my mind, never to be thought about again, but Dark Forces isn’t one of them and I’m glad that this remaster is letting younger Star Wars fans dive into a fantastic story.
Final Score:
Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster
Released On: Feb 28, 2024
Reviewed On: PC
Developer: Nightdive Studios
Publisher: Nightdive Studios
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