'Star Wars: Dark Forces' Gets A Makeover Thanks To Some Dedicated Fans

Star Wars

Dec 21

In February of 1995, LucasArts released Dark Forces. The video game was remarkable in several ways: Firstly it featured the character of Kyle Katarn, a former stormtrooper, later mercenary, and then even Jedi Knight. He would live on not only in the game's sequels (Dark Forces II and the Jedi Knight series) but also became an important character in many books and comics of the former Expanded Universe.

Secondly, it dealt with capturing the Deat Star plans, more than 20 years before Rogue One. Thirdly, it introduced the Dark Troopers, which were brought back into current Star Wars lore in the season two finale of The Mandalorian, when Luke Skywalker made short work of them.

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It was LucasArt's entry into the world of First Person Shooters.

Often referred to as a clone of Doom (which had been released one year prior), there are rumors that LucasArt's developers actually reverse-engineered the Doom engine to create the "Jedi Engine" which powered Dark Forces as well as its "cousin", the Western game Outlaw, which was released one year later.

While the story of Dark Forces still holds up, the technology behind the game is dated by today's standards. To remedy some of these limitations, a group of dedicated developers has now repeated history by reverse-engineering the "Jedi Engine" to create a modern-day equivalent which they called "The Force Engine" (TFE). Version 1.0 of the TFE has now been released to the public after three years of work.

Dark Forces screenshot — Image Source: TFE project, LucasArt

The TFE allows playing the game in a much higher resolution, letting the GPU handle all the rendering, adding improved mouse and controller support, and adding auto-save. But it also makes the many homebrew mods that have come out over the year play seamlessly.

Version 1.0 requires Windows 7, 64-bit (cross-platform gaming for macOS and Linux will be added in early 2023), and it is not yet compatible with Outlaw, something that will be included in Version 2.0 coming later next year. Like a traditional source port, it requires the original game, which can be purchased for just a few bucks on Steam or GoG.

The official website for TFE provides the download link for TFE 1.0, extensive documentation, a forum, and a roadmap with the look ahead.

While the TFE doesn't suddenly turn Dark Forces into a new game, it makes the game playable on current hardware and lets players relive the many unofficial additional levels and add-ons that have come out since 1995.

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