‘Dark Forces Remaster’ Launches, Includes Previously Unreleased Level and Updated Cutscenes
Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster has released today across all major platforms. The Remaster, developed by Nightdive Studios in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games, revamps the classic 1995 shooter for modern consoles while still preserving the classic game experience. Ahead of the launch, Nightdive spoke to the PlayStation blog about their process in bringing this beloved game to life alongside new images comparing the remastered work with the original.
Check out the launch trailer for the game below
Dark Forces put the player in the shoes of new character Kyle Katarn, who investigates and works to stop the Dark Trooper project, hopping across the galaxy to uncover clues, free spies and facing off against the deadly droids themselves! The game was an instant classic and had a huge impact, not only on Star Wars lore but on the game industry, pushing the early technology of First Person Shooters (known as DOOM-clones back then) to new heights. Nightdive recognised the huge innovation behind the game as they worked to bring it to modern consoles.
Dark Forces is greater than the sum of its parts, and while I will point out key impressive aspects of the game, I want to emphasize just how strong it is as a cohesive whole. There are two things that jump out at me the most for the time period: support for 3D environments that allow for room-over-room, which was something that the Doom engine was not capable of; seamless integration of fully 3D objects within the environment (like Kyle’s ship, X-Wings, Mouse Droids, etc.).
One of the biggest tasks for the developers at Nightdive was revamping the cutscenes. The original cutscenes had a lot of different elements from custom animation to movie footage. Trying to upscale the original content drew more attention to the disparate elements of the cinematics so new hand-drawn assets were created, based on the Original Trilogy characters, such as Jabba and Crix Madine that appear in the game and this was layered over a new 3D environment.
The developers also shared some of their favorite elements of the game, including Kyle’s famous Bryar Pistol and the Dark Troopers.
Digital Foundry had their hands on the game and shared an in-depth review on their site, calling the game a ‘triumph’ for Nightdive. The review is very technical (most of the stuff about framerates went right over my head!) but it did reveal some previously unknown features, such as players being able to switch between original and remastered graphics during gameplay – similar to the Halo Anniversary remastered games.
Another feature that has been hinted at previously is ‘The Vault’ – a repository of development materials from the 1995 game, including concept art, pre-rendered assets and cutscenes. But what hadn’t been revealed is that this also includes ‘The Avenger’ – a demo level that let the player infiltrate a Star Destroyer. Footage from the level was shown in promotional material but was not included in the final game has never before been available to the player.
Dark Forces Remaster is available now on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch and PC
A teacher from Wales in the UK, Aled has loved Star Wars ever since that Star Destroyer flew over his head and blew his mind.
