In 1997 Lucasarts released a sequel to the FPS Star Wars game titled Dark Forces. It allowed fans to play as Kyle Katarn, the mercenary who supplied the Rebellion with the plans for the first Death Star. While this has all been retconned by The Mouse, the legend of the merc-turned-Jedi still lives on, thanks to an unauthorized remake of Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 by Ruppertle.
The Unreal Engine remake of the game was shown off a couple of days ago on the designer’s YouTube channel. It announced that two levels from Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 are now playable. The downloads can be found on Ruppertle’s Discord and Patreon. According to the Patreon page, V1.0 of this remake took three years to develop.
I’ve not yet had a chance to check it out for myself, but the footage shown off looks great. Version 1.0 comes with the following:
- Two official levels from the original game
- 4 Survival levels
- a Sandbox mode
- 3d model viewer
- bonus level for testing
- some secrets…
Dark Forces 2 was a real turning point for Star Wars games. The first-person shooter moved away from being a DOOM-like title and was now using something similar to the Quake Engine. It also introduced us to other Jedi who had survived the purge following the Clone Wars.
Another first was that the game used live-action cutscenes, which fans had wanted for a while. Remember, at this time, the Star Wars franchise was just in comics, books, and action figures.
The Original Trilogy had just been re-released with updated visuals in theatres to get everyone pumped for Episode 1. So, to see brand new characters and Jedi in live-action was a thrill.
I kind of miss when we were slightly starved for Star Wars content. Now that we’re hit over the head with it by Disney every month, the franchise has lost its charm.
[Source: Ruppertle’s Patreon] [Source: Ruppertle’s YouTube Channel]ClownfishTV.com strives to be an apolitical, balanced and based pop culture news outlet. However, our contributors are entitled to their individual opinions. Author opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of our video hosts, other site contributors, site editors, affiliates, sponsors or advertisers. This website contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. We disclaim products or services we have received for review purposes, as well as sponsored posts.
