Star Wars: Dark Forces

1995 · First-Person Shooter · PC/DOS

Overview

Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995) is LucasArts' first-person shooter starring mercenary Kyle Katarn. Its Jedi engine added looking up and down, jumping and multi-floor levels.

Deep Dive

Kyle Katarn, a mercenary working for the Rebel Alliance, first recovers the Death Star plans and then uncovers the Empire's Dark Trooper Project, led by General Rom Mohc. The campaign ends with Katarn destroying Mohc's flagship, the Arc Hammer. The Jedi engine, built from scratch for the game, let the player look up and down, duck, jump and swim through levels with several floors.

Developer Story

Daron Stinnett directed the game, Ray Gresko led programming, Justin Chin wrote the story and worked on the art, and Clint Bajakian composed the music. Production began in September 1993, and it was released for MS-DOS on 8 March 1995. Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II followed in 1997.

Did You Know?

Luke Skywalker was first planned as the hero; Kyle Katarn was created to give the team more freedom.
The Dark Troopers later appeared in The Mandalorian.
It shipped more than 300,000 copies before launch and debuted at number one on PC Data's chart.