The Top 25 Star Wars Games - Based on Lore, World-Building & Exploration

[Louis_Cypher]

Also that Age of Empires 2 but it's Star Wars game. Forgot its name but it was decent.

The Age of Empires one was 'Galactic Battlegrounds'. It was alright, like I enjoyed it as a bit of fun, but you might remember it was essentially a reskin, and they didn't fully attempt to justify the new game in Star Wars terms. So suddenly there are blue carbon rocks growing everywhere in the middle of fields on every planet, a reskin of stone/metal quarries, and an army has to harvest them AoE style to build things

I'm honestly trying not to rag on any game, I enjoyed a lot of stuff that isn't on the list, but I had to limit it. Maybe I should top it up to 20?

Empires at War was something I considered though. I mentioned it in The Old Republic writeup. A lot of things people asked, I mentioned.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Decent list with a few exceptions. Don't agree with the order but that's just splitting hairs.

Mine would be:

1. The KotOR Series (Excluding TOR)
2. The Jedi Knight Series (Starting with Dark Forces and ending with Jedi Academy)
3. Republic Commando
4. X-Wing/Tie Fighter Series
5. Rogue Squadron Series
6. Empire At War and Forces of Corruption
7. Shadows of the Empire

KotORs edge out the JKs in my estimation because they rely less on the films and follow my favorite time period in the EU - the TOTJ comics. They also offer the deepest dive into the philosophy of the Force.

TOR is disqualified because it's among certain media that came out during the period of IP mismanagement leading up to the Disney buyout, the equivalent of the "Crisis of the Third Century" for Star Wars. Lots of rapine pillage occurred by companies and authors that should never have been in a position to do so in the first place. From it you had the butchery of KotOR's main characters in particular. Turning Revan into a puppet for a lame Warhammer 40k god-emperor, and the Exile into his #1 fangirl. You had a gross simplification of the motivations of the True Sith. You had steep decline in visual design, going from a different but still recognizably Star Wars realism (for 03-04) to Pixar meets WoW in 2012. Ancient decay was replaced with PT visuals.

This period also played host to the first EU Paralympic competition in Mental Gymnastics brought to you by The Force Unleashed. I keenly remember the spergery that went on about the infamous Star Destroyer scene, all and sundry desperately trying to square that with Vader being canonically more powerful. This has been a problem in Star Wars for a long time and gaming in general. There's a certain one-upmanship that goes on with heroes and villains in video games almost pathologically needing to be more powerful than anything that came before. Starkiller was a product of this. Should have never been given the greenlight in the first place or else toned-down massively by Lucas Arts. Lastly you had shitty comics released like Dawn of the Jedi, that threw the whole nature of the Force into jeopardy for "muh moral-grey" wish fulfillment fantasies. The gate was not being watched well enough.

I also exclude Fallen Order because it's Disney canon and I don't particularly care for Souls clones anyway.

Anyway, not shitting on OP's choices, just explaining my own positions.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

TOR is disqualified because it's among certain media that came out during the period of IP mismanagement leading up to the Disney buyout, the equivalent of the "Crisis of the Third Century" for Star Wars. Lots of rapine pillage occurred by companies and authors that should never have been in a position to do so in the first place. From it you had the butchery of KotOR's main characters in particular. Turning Revan into a puppet for a lame Warhammer 40k god-emperor, and the Exile into his #1 fangirl. You had a gross simplification of the motivations of the True Sith. You had steep decline in visual design, going from a different but still recognizably Star Wars realism (for 03-04) to Pixar meets WoW in 2012.

This period also played host to the first EU Paralympic competition in Mental Gymnastics brought to you by The Force Unleashed. I keenly remember the spergery that went on about the infamous Star Destroyer scene, all and sundry desperately trying to square that with Vader being canonically more powerful. This has been a problem in Star Wars for a long time and gaming in general. There's a certain one-upmanship that goes on with heroes and villains in video games almost pathologically needing to be more powerful than anything that came before. Starkiller was a product of this. Should have never been given the greenlight in the first place or else toned-down massively by Lucas Arts. Lastly you had shitty comics released like Dawn of the Jedi, that threw the whole nature of the Force into jeopardy for "muh moral-grey" wish fulfillment fantasies. The gate was not being watched well enough.

Absolutely agree with your analysis, I think you 'get it' as a fan. Our lists might be in a different order, but I think we are saying the same thing. TOR and The Force Unleashed were utter decline in terms of ideas that shouldn't have been greenlit, and the Star Destroyer scene was the peak of that infamy. Then the 'moral grey' shit crept in more and more, with superficial 'analysis' on forums and YouTube taking it further.

Star Wars has a moral core and view of nature, that writers have to accept, or it isn't Star Wars. They can remove it, but it will cease inspiring anyone, because a cohesive view is central to the appeal of all the great pop fandoms; Tolkien, Trek, B5, etc. The entire metaphysics was increasingly being fucked around, and some very retarded stuff crept in. Just be glad it was never as bad as Star Trek, which is now unrecognizable.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

While I have no complaints about most of this, I gotta say I thought that Bounty Hunter was pretty crappy, even at the time. You have to awkwardly stop to scan for bounties, which is really annoying after the second level or so. The game has way too much platforming going on it it. And the last couple of levels are some kind of bizarre nightmare where you fight neverending hordes of weird black creatures.
While my personal favorite Galactic Battlegrounds has been mentioned, Battlefront 2 deserves some consideration. Yeah, I know you were talking about lore too, but Battlefront 2 has a story mode where you play as a clone in Darth Vader's personal squadron. Wasn't mind-blowing or anything, but it was pretty fun following a group of people through the clone wars into the Battle of Hoth.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I know that Battlefront 2 was beloved for a lot of people, you often hear guys talking about how they used to play it with their little brother for hours, etc. Like you say, the only reason I didn't include it again was just the campaign is not really the main focus (and also there was a bit of autistic symmetry going on with having the sequel in there but not the original lol). I might however remove TOR from the list, and include either Rebellion, Empire at War or Galactic Battlegrounds. Someone will say why isn't TOR there, but I think there are better games in terms of fleshing out the setting.

Star Wars: Rebellion isn't as good a 4X as it's counterpart Star Trek: Birth of the Federation, but it still teaches a lot of lore about star systems, military facilities and stuff.

I think some of the better games that I didn't include, with some lore value, were:

• - Star Wars: Rebellion
• - Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds
• - Star Wars: Clone Wars
• - Star Wars: Empire at War
• - Star Wars: Episode I - Racer
• - Star Wars: Battlefront II
• - Star Wars: Rogue Squadron I/II

Maybe I'll replace Bounty Hunter, or bring the list up to 20 games, with some of these.

 

[Lyric Suite]

So i got Fallen Order for 90 cents lul. First and only game i have on Origin, aside for some of the free shit they gave away at some point.

So now i got Steam, Epic and Origin installed. Fuck, they got me.

 

[Falksi]

Got Fallen Order the other week, jacked it in after around 10 hours. It's not awful overall because the combat is decent, but all the Uncharted style world roaming shit is boring as fuck, as are large parts of the worlds you explore. Disney's poisonous nu-Star Wars vibe runs right throughout it too.

I fucking love Tie Fighter to bits still though.

 

[Zibniyat]

I still haven't played a number of games in the OP's list, like Mysteries of the Sith which just didn't sit well with me after Dark Forces II, since MotS felt very different to it in a number of ways so I dropped it after a short time.

I think it's a good enough list, although having Bioware's KOTOR that high up is stretching it. I understand why it was included and how it was viewed favourably, but as someone who played KOTOR II first, it felt way below it in every way, not to mention Bioware's focus on idiotic diversity. The plot was predictable, the characters merely childishly archetypical, there were fake choices & consequences the game forced on the player etc. Overall I found it to be a bad game actually and would never replay it again.

As for people who mention Empire at War. It was a horrible RTS with a too great an emphasis on superheroes who singlehandedly, and by abusing the stupid AI, conquered worlds. The real-time strategy layer ended being a chore, with too many and too frequent battles across the map just to fend of the amassed horde of enemy ships; no real strategy there, just the battle of numbers against s dumb AI. Its expansion, Forces of Corruption, introduced a visually ugly and boring new faction, a faction that somehow could still rival the "greats" of Star Wars universe, of which in Empire at War were only two (Empire and Rebellion or however the latter was called). An underwhelming expansion by LucasArts (that is, Petroglyph) made when they were already in the process of ditching the PC in favour of the "future" that is the consoles.

Galactic Battlegrounds is my childhood favourite, although objectively still a rather week RTS, unless one played against other players (I never did, so ...). However, unlike Empire at War, it still offered much "more" of stuff to play with and explore: 6 initial factions, later with another 2 I think, detailed lore descriptions for each, very nice and memorable campaigns, a powerful editor for creating one's own maps, scenarios and campaigns.

I still remember this exchange from one of the missions, where the two speak through a "communication link":

Vader: Governor Belledar, why has this Rebel infiltration been tolerated for so long?

Governor: I ... don't understand the question my lord.

Vader: *chokes him telepathically across a great distance* Did that clarify things, governor?



Just such a lovely and memorable exchange.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

there were fake choices & consequences the game forced on the player etc.

Refresh my memory, which were these? I recall a few fake persuade checks, but overall like every Bioware game, there wasn't much long term C&C to begin with.

 

[Zibniyat]

there were fake choices & consequences the game forced on the player etc.

Refresh my memory, which were these? I recall a few fake persuade checks, but overall like every Bioware game, there wasn't much long term C&C to begin with.

An example: on Rakatan planet I was supposed to go alone into a certain temple, a condition which I refused, but I was simply told to then come back when I change my mind and to prepare well for the expedition. So I was forced to go alone, and I thought to myself "Well fine, it may be quite an interesting experience." Just prior to going in, two of my companions show up via a cutscene and literally demand they go with me because "it is too dangerous". I refuse them, several times, through dialogue, but in the end I was, again, left with no choice but to accept them, since the game offers no real and meaningful choice with real and dire consequences.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I reject that game outright since it acknowledges the shit that Disknee made under the name Star Wars.

I'm no great fan of what Disney has done with the license, but there seems to be factional infighting within Lucasfilm (if rumors are to be believed). For those who haven't watched it, some of the Mandalorian is genuinely good (I will stand by that claim), which leads a lot of people to believe that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni on one side are trying to keep Star Wars traditional/spiritual, and there is this notion that maybe Kathleen Kennedy and several story group personnel are pushing a woke/feminist agenda. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I do notice a different tone abruptly manifest between different works.

For example in a recent episode they explicitly mention traditionalism and nationalism, in reference to the Mandalorian creed, saying that nations which violate the creed are doomed to fail, but the ultra-Orthodox Mandalorians were saved by their hardiness and adherence to the decentralized ancient ways of the nomadic Mandalorian crusaders. Another example is how Luke Skywalker recently upstaged pretty much everyone in an episode, broadcast around Christmas, in which he acted as a thinly veiled religious icon, harrowing the forces of darkness.

While Star Wars is controlled by an agenda, there will obviously be decline, but unlike Star Trek, it's not all bad.

So i got Fallen Order for 90 cents lul. First and only game i have on Origin, aside for some of the free shit they gave away at some point.

So now i got Steam, Epic and Origin installed. Fuck, they got me.

Oh no, not Origin

If I had known you would do that, I would have never have recommended it. My guilt intensifies.

As for people who mention Empire at War. It was a horrible RTS with a too great an emphasis on superheroes who singlehandedly, and by abusing the stupid AI, conquered worlds. The real-time strategy layer ended being a chore, with too many and too frequent battles across the map just to fend of the amassed horde of enemy ships; no real strategy there, just the battle of numbers against s dumb AI.

I agree. I wonder with some of the suggestions, whether people remember some of the major problems these games had. The Star Trek list, ironically, has more genuinely lost games with good gameplay, but many of the most famous Star Wars games had very janky ill-thought gameplay. Force Unleashed was janky as hell. Empire at War had that RTS layer which was frankly a chore.

 

[JamesDixon]

I reject that game outright since it acknowledges the shit that Disknee made under the name Star Wars.

I'm no great fan of what Disney has done with the license, but there seems to be factional infighting within Lucasfilm (if rumors are to be believed). For those who haven't watched it, some of the Mandalorian is genuinely good (I will stand by that claim), which leads a lot of people to believe that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni on one side are trying to keep Star Wars traditional/spiritual, and there is this notion that maybe Kathleen Kennedy and several story group personnel are pushing a woke/feminist agenda. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I do notice a different tone abruptly manifest between different works.

For example in a recent episode they explicitly mention traditionalism and nationalism, in reference to the Mandalorian creed, saying that nations which violate the creed are doomed to fail, but the ultra-Orthodox Mandalorians were saved by their hardiness and adherence to the decentralized ancient ways of the nomadic Mandalorian crusaders. Another example is how Luke Skywalker recently upstaged pretty much everyone in an episode, broadcast around Christmas, in which he acted as a thinly veiled religious icon, harrowing the forces of darkness.

While Star Wars is controlled by an agenda, there will obviously be decline, but unlike Star Trek, it's not all bad.

I don't believe the entire infighting rumors since none of what has been reported happened yet.

The Mandalorian is not canon since it is done by Disknee. Only the original 3 canons by Lucas Arts are there which is G Canon, C Canon, and S Canon. G Canon is George's own canon and that includes The Clone Wars TV show. C Canon is the expanded universe that was in comics etc... S Canon was ignored by EU authors as needed for their stories.

As it stands now, Disknee Canon is fanfiction and nothing more.

As for your Star Destroyer in Force Unleashed you forget what Yoda taught Luke in ESB when he pulled Luke's X-Wing from the water.

Luke: I can’t. It’s too big.
Yoda: Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.
Luke: You want the impossible. [sees Yoda use the Force to levitate the X-Wing out of the bog and gets flustered when he does it] I don’t… I don’t believe it!
Yoda: That is why you fail.

You just contradicted Yoda's own teaching which is canon. Size doesn't matter when it comes to the force.

 

[T.Ashpool]

good list. personally i would rank jedi knight 2 higher than the other dark forces/jedi knight games and x-wing alliance higher than x-wing/tie fighter but that's just me. the graphics mods that exist for xwa are incredible, makes the game look like a modern game almost. also i would add the star wars podracer game because i liked how it took a small thing from the prequels which is podcaring and expanded on it with all these different racers and planets and such. there is also a clone wars game for gamecube/ps2/xbox, it probably doesn't hold up today but i liked it back then because the clone wars really don't get shown much in the movies.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

As for your Star Destroyer in Force Unleashed you forget what Yoda taught Luke in ESB when he pulled Luke's X-Wing from the water.

I'm not forgetting that at all, why are people so confrontational over nothing?

I just think it makes poor story sense, from a world-building perspective. I don't care about Yoda and Luke's exchange, which, by the way, had spiritual elements that were also condensed by Leigh Brackett and Laurence Kasdan. Why would Palpatine even need a Death Star? He could pull planets out of orbit. To have Starkiller better able to 'empty his assumptions' better than the chosen one, just cheapens Luke's achievements, and for so little; a mediocre game. It also contained pure wank like his family crest becoming the Rebel Alliance symbol. Not everything George Lucas himself approved was always the best decision.

 

[JamesDixon]

As for your Star Destroyer in Force Unleashed you forget what Yoda taught Luke in ESB when he pulled Luke's X-Wing from the water.

I'm not forgetting that at all, why are people so confrontational over nothing?

I just think it makes poor story sense, from a world-building perspective. I don't care about Yoda and Luke's exchange, which, by the way, had spiritual elements that were also condensed by Leigh Brackett and Laurence Kasdan. Why would Palpatine even need a Death Star? He could pull planets out of orbit. To have Starkiller better able to 'empty his assumptions' better than the chosen one, just cheapens Luke's achievements, and for so little; a mediocre game. It also contained pure fanwank like his family crest becoming the Rebel Alliance symbol. Not everything George Lucas himself approved was always the best decision.

I'm not confrontational. I'm talking to you as an adult does with another adult. Seems like you want it to be confrontational though.

This is called moving the goal posts. I answered your reasons for not including Force Unleashed with actual canon.

That's your opinion and you're welcome to it. However, expect it to be criticized.

Luke was never the chosen one. Anakin is. He brought balance to the force with the destruction of the Emperor/Sith just like he destroyed the Jedi.

Starkiller did not cheapen what Luke did in the slightest because they both had different paths. All Starkiller represents is Vader's own personal Emperor's Hand in the vein of Mara Jade. Are you claiming that Mara Jade cheapened Luke's achievements because she was equal to him? What about all the Inquisitors that hunted down the Jedi? Do they cheapen Luke's accomplishments?

George didn't approve of much when it came to the EU. Lucas Arts Licensing did. That's why whatever Licensing approved became either C or S canon. It did not have George's stamp of approval.

The great thing about C and S canon is that you can pick and choose what you want. If you don't want Starkiller's family heraldry being the Rebel Alliance symbol then you don't have it be it. It's that simple. However, the criticism you had over the star destroyer scene is refuted directly by Yoda in ESB. You can't argue with that and saying it's jank.

 

[samuraigaiden]

Yoda Stories takes place between Episodes V and VI and shows what happened during the period Luke was training under Yoda. Lore wise, it's actually relevant to the original film trilogy.

Fallen Order goes for 90 cents on G2A lmao i think i'm gonna byte.

If you have Amazon Prime you can still get it there without paying anything extra. That's probably where those G2A keys come from.

Lego Starwars are also quite good. Whether they belong on such a list is debatable, but they are competently made and very fun in coop.

Traveller's Tales developed Lego games are all pretty cool and definitely a good introduction to these franchises for the younger crowd.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I'm kinda off Star Wars stuff after seeing Boba Fett de-nutted and cucked in the new SW series (though the bad wookie was cool) but this is a solid list.

 

[JamesDixon]

You know what's retarded about the list that Louis_Cypher came up with? All the games he listed has a Canon Contribution entry. He put in a Disknee fanfiction game where Disknee removed the old canon completely to replace it with it's own. If you are going to create a list then you need to separate the games by old EU/Lucas canon and Disknee Fan Fiction Canon. Fucking retard can't even do that right.

 

[AndyS]

In my opinion, the original Dark Forces is still the best pure FPS that Star Wars has, and every fan should play it however they can, whether with mods or just using DOSBox as Steam and GOG.com do. Almost every other Star Wars FPS tries to be something other than a shooter, like adding melee combat, but this protagonist has no special powers; he is just a solider. This is how the majority of Star Wars millions of soldiers and heroes fight; with guns alone. Kyle is one of Star Wars best gunfighters. The game does not grovel around main trilogy characters making cameo appearances; they are are absent.

I wish they had left Kyle as just a gunfighter. I have this odd relationship with Star Wars in that I grew up loving the movies like so many, but my favorite character was always Han Solo by a pretty wide margin. As the franchise developed, the Force/Jedi stuff became practically its sole focus. If you weren't a Jedi or Sith, you were diddly shit, especially as the Force powers inflated like Dragonball. Every time it seems like they're going to do something I might find refreshingly restrained, they hammer the Jedi button again. Mandalorian started out kind of interesting, then freaking Baby Yoda appears and he's already got major Force powers. I'm fine sticking with the original three movies.

The Star Wars game I played most recently (aside from the original arcade games) was Mysteries of the Sith, which I had to bail on it because I hated the lightsaber combat. Which is kind of odd because I tolerated it in Dark Forces II, a game I enjoyed overall.

 

[Volrath]

Is Fallen Order that good?

Absolutely fucking not. The complete opposite.

 

[Fedora Master]

Where's Star Wars Episode I: The Gungan Frontier?

 

[jebsmoker]

i have tried, and tried, and tried to get into star wars: rebellion but the god-awful UI just kills it for me. is it worth rolling with the punches and stomaching the awful UI?

 

[Darth Roxor]

i have tried, and tried, and tried to get into star wars: rebellion but the god-awful UI just kills it for me. is it worth rolling with the punches and stomaching the awful UI?

I would say yes. The UI stops being a problem once you get used to its quirks, and after that's done IMO Rebellion is a very, very cool game with some unique mechanics like the planetary alignment meters and ways of influencing them. There are few things as satisfying as invading a star system that is 100% rebel, conquering two planets and seeing the others fold like a stack of cards.

The only major problem with Rebellion is the enemy AI in space battles. The space battles are actually very interesting and ahead of their time because they work very much like in Homeworld - they are in full 3D and there's a relatively complex ladder of rock-paper-scissors where fighters beat bombers, corvettes beat fighters, frigates beat corvettes and so on. It's obvious that Empire at War took many cues from Rebellion. However, this is largely brought down by the super-cowardly enemy AI, which will just keep running away from space battles even if it has a clear advantage. It's ridiculous, because to really see them shine you need to get interdictors, which prevent anyone from retreating, but they don't become available until very late in the game.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Where's Star Wars Episode I: The Gungan Frontier?

You're the only one here with the correct mental age to have played it. Where does it rank in your favourites?

 

[Fedora Master]

Where's Star Wars Episode I: The Gungan Frontier?

You're the only one here with the correct mental age to have played it. Where does it rank in your favourites?

I thought it was actually pretty fun.