

EA took years to find its stride with the sequel, which was lambasted for egregious monetization at launch, and fans believe Battlefront 2 was abandoned after so much had been done to salvage its reputation. A promising third-person action game Star Wars: 1313 was canceled, and fans would have to wait years before Star Wars: Battlefront. The glory days of Dark Forces, Knights of the Old Republic, and Republic Commando ironically began to fade at a time of freshly instilled hope for the franchise when new IP owner Disney signed an exclusive contract with Electronic Arts. Although many attempts to update Dark Forces have been showcased, The Force Engine is by far the most promising to date. RELATED: Ubisoft is Hiring Playtesters for Its Star Wars Gameĭocumentation for The Force Engine, designed to "reverse engineer and rebuild the Jedi Engine for modern systems," details that the goal is for the project to "act as a viable replacement for DosBox," the current emulator used by players which "only supports resolutions up to 320x200." The Force Engine "replaces the executable, not the game," meaning that a copy of Dark Forces will be required for those interested.

An endeavor titled The Force Engine seeks to rectify this and has been in development for the past three years. However, built using the Jedi Engine Dark Forces released in 1995 and remains difficult to play using modern hardware due to the lack of any official remaster or remake. Despite the "Doom clone" label that would have a less-than-favorable implication today, Dark Forces introduced a variety of mechanics and functionality absent from the original Doom that modern gamers could likely not fathom to be without, notably the ability to move on a vertical axis, crouch, and jump. Star Wars video games have been considered at the forefront of the industry for decades, and "Doom clone" Dark Forces was one of the first first-person shooters ever made. The project to rebuild one of the original engines used for Star Wars titles has been ongoing for years, and version 1.0 arrives with complete Dark Forces support. A fan-made mod makes the seminal Star Wars: Dark Forces playable at 4K alongside other modern conveniences.
