Star Wars: Dark Forces - Extensive Retrospective┃History and Analysis 

I made an EGREGIOUS error in my scripting! Dark Forces predates the first STAND-ALONE Windows operating system (Windows 95) by about 4 months. Not the Windows operating system itself.

I fondly remember playing this, though not spending £80 on an extra 2mb of RAM to play it. When Rogue One came out I thought, 'Hold on, I stole the Death Star plans!'

Theres a reason Kyle is called Space Chuck Norris.

As far as coding goes, the Jedi Engine shares much more in common with what would later become the Build Engine than Doom's, because of the use of portals rather than bsp trees. Iirc they had an asian tech wiz on there who pretty much came to the same conclusions as Carmack's fast orthogonal sector-based rendering (perhaps inspired by doom pre-release builds) and it grew into another beast entirely, fitting it with room over room capabilities and affine texture mapped 3d model rendering, which Doom nor Build ever supported.

Ah yes, the REAL Rogue One.

Fun fact, many assets from this game were also used in Shadows of the Empire, like the sound effects and voice clips, you may notice that Kyle Katarn's in game voice is the same as Dash Rendar's as well as the voices of the stormtroopers

This game is not older than windows. I think Windows 3.1 was out when this game was released. DOS was the operating system that Windows ran on top of until Windows XP.

Solid EU Starwars focus. Excited for more to come!

In a year I bet this channel has grown substantially, lord knows it deserves it

I am so glad someone did a video going through this fantastic game from my childhood. To hell with Disney. They threw out some amazing content when it came to movies they COULD have made. I disavow Rogue One as the story of how the Death Star plans were acquired. Kyle "Motherfu*king" Katarn did that along with Jan "I'm a badas*" Ors. I cannot wait for the Nightdive remake. They have done the work of the Gods in recent remakes.

IIRC, Lucasarts had already been in the advanced workings of DF before Doom even came out. Perhaps Wolfenstein was their initial inspiration? I just remember how DF was lumped in with the rest of the ‘Doom Clones’ of that time, and the developers basically saying they were already working on this game before ID’s game even came out.

"The puzzles/navigation was not that hard." Bro, I first played this when I was 11. I spent a YEAR replaying the first 3 levels because I could NOT beat that sewer level. Any hint as to what that center switch did or what I was supposed to do in the doors it opened probably would have got me through but, ugh that level frustrated and terrified me. I never figured it out and I saw dianoga's popping out at me in pitch darkness as my nightmares! I finally got some cheat codes online once we got dial-up and skipped that level to continue on and beat each subsequent level until the prison level, also never figured that one out. I was probably 32 by the time I showed my kids and revisited this game to finally figure out where to go and what to do on each level. Playing this game as a kid in 1996 is kind of akin to the first time my kids tried Oculus Quest. It truly was revolutionary to me, and I also experienced DOOM as a 10 year old! Oh, 90's computing. PC gaming on shareware and CD ROM really was a secluded experience; NO HELP or guidance with lot of terrifying things trying to kill such a young kid hahah

It usually takes me about a week to finish these long retrospectives. I listen as I fall asleep and then just start the next night at the last part I remember.

Games that confused,make you mad and rage quit and throw up, ahhh the good old days :)

33:25 Fun fact this ship is SUPPOSEDLY only 160 meters long, but the interior's actually got to be at least 242 or so converting the ingame units to meters. And the Crow is only partway up the ship when it's at the absolute edge of the interior map. So the ship;'s more like 500m.

Somehow every 90s and early 2000s Star Wars game has a side plot involved about Crix Madine turning to the rebels

Loved this series ever since it first came out. And while I do think that Rogue One is the best of the Disney Star Wars projects (and Andor) there is something classic about this take on the Death Star plans and what came after. Yeah, the Legends timeline rules.

Mr. Prince. I really don't understand why your channel has such a small subscriber amount. Your videos are really good. May the algorithm fairy find your channel soon

I had access to this game on the mac when i was a kid in the 90's and STRONGLY influenced my love and appreciation for star wars games and lore. I love this game and as a kid it was something very special for me. glad to see younger generations able to enjoy it and see it the way I did.

Anybody else stoked for the remaster coming next year? I'm hoping we see a similar situation with Dark Force II, because getting that game to run properly on modern PC's is an absolute nightmare. I still haven't gotten it done.

You Take that back! The Dark Forces Audiodrama is a Masterpeice! XD

46:30 Except for the lone brown-clothed Imperial officer idling in the hangar, the true final boss of the game.

It's sad to see how much love, quality and effort was put into old Star Wars content compared to the endless trash Disney farts out today

WOW! My new favorite RU-vid channel just off one video. Truly fantastic content. I love your genuine enthusiasm for the experience, as well as your ability to review it while also embodying the character and story as the game progresses. It was a lot of fun reliving this game with you. Cheers

You should do a retrospective on Dark Forces 2. I played and beat DF as a young kid, when i saw DF's 2 in the store i freaked. The whole jedi thing hit me blind, so i doubly freaked.

Can't wait for another excuse to replay this game again, that Nightdive remaster will more than suffice - this game is one of the best shooters of its era and was one of the first games I remember really digging into back in the day. Was pretty damn hard to figure out without a booklet and without the ability to understand English back then.

You’re one of my new favourite channels! Thank you so much for this!

What an amazing retrospective! Love it! Subscribed!

16:05 Did you realize there's a map? One of the Easter Eggs on one level was seeing the head of Max from the Steve Purcell comics and then-LucasArts game "Sam & Max".

Fantastic coverage and extensive assessment of one of my favorite games when I was growing up

Excellent retrospective. I love how you juxtapose modern game footage with the classic game. Dark Forces is a game I remember fondly from when I was 12 years old. Star Wars videogames used to be so immersive. They were really trying to recapture the Cinematic experience. This game came out before even the special editions of the movies hit theaters, but it was all a part of the lead up to seeing Star Wars in theaters again after 20 years. I think Star Wars games really benefited from being made "in-house" by Lucasfilm. The people behind the games cared about the lore, because they weren't just programmers for hire. They really were invested in it.

21:27 X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and X-Wing vs TIE Fighter had dynamic music also. 😊

I still remember the first time I saw Dark Forces, it was the demo playing on a computer in Circuit City. Stopped me in my tracks. The game became my life until Goldeneye was released a few years later. My best friend and I made custom levels with Dark Forge and uploaded them to our GeoCities Dark Forces webpage. I can still find it with WayBackMachine. It was the early days of the internet and an absolute hell of a time. I'm 40 years old and can still vividly remember the excitement this game made me feel almost 30 years ago. The last time I saw some of the levels in this video was when I was playing the game in-period. Brings back lots of emotions and childhood memories. I still have the original box with its complete packaging and Mac CD-ROM. Can't wait to play the remaster. Thanks for the video.

Very nice review. I remember being so excited when I was a kid for this game. The night dive remaster should be great, night dive is an amazing studio that release amazing modern remaster of all these legacy games.

Yeah. That detention level was hell in 1995. I saw the little door but took a while for me to click that uou had to "Die Hard" your way through

One of the many games I remember playing as a kid and wish they fully remade on today's best gaming engines. X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter would definitely be on that list as well. Great job with this video, thanks for making it! Brings back soooooo many memories.

Great video and very nostalgic! Although the majority of my time was spent on Dark Forces 2!

Funny story. I found and started playing Dark Forces in 1996 on PC. I was playing this game when my future wife called me for the first time. I didn't pause the game. :) Twenty six years later, that wonderful woman is still with me and went to see all the Prequels at midnight and all of the Sequels. This game started a new life for me. :)

"The music is dynamic, I can't think of another game that did it." That would be the IMUSE music system, first used in the original release of X-Wing in 1992. It was sadly not reused for the more popular CD-Rom release.

1:37 this is unlikely, development started a bit before Doom released or MAYBE slightly after. Officially it was more inspired by Wolfenstein but when Doom came out the project scope expanded.

One of my all time favorite SW games, this is the canon to me. Kyle got the Death Star plans, not Jen Erso. I can't wait for the Nightdive Remaster, if just to play it with quality of life additions. I hope that Nightdive eventually work on remastering Dark Forces 2 and Mysteries of the Sith and eventually bring them to modern consoles

This was one of the first game ive ever played with my dad. i still replay it at least once a year

It wasn't released before windows os. Windows 1.0 came out in November 1985

Really enjoying this series. Keep up the amazing work!

If the sequel trilogy were written competently, Finn's character arc would have mirrored Kyle Katarn's...

Great video! I hope you do the other games in the series :) One small nitpick: Vader's ship the Executor is pronounced as the legal term, like it is the "executor of Vader's will", not like executioner. Again: small nitpick :P I did legitimately enjoy your video though!

Not before Windows but before Windows 95SE and the rest. One of the best.

Great video and fantastic to see Dark Forces getting some love. Gotta do Dark Forces 2 : Jedi Knight next though, surely ! Kyle Katarn is almost more Star Wars to me than Luke and Co. Spent huge chunks of my youth playing all of these games and I hold them very dearly.

I played this game few years ago after being huge fan of Jedi outcast. This game held up surprisingly well and only remember that final boss kicking my ass forever. Excited to eventually try the remastered and play this again.

Wasn't Windows originally released in 1985?

Glad I found this channel, awesome videos! I am hyped for the other entries in the dark forces/jedi knight franchise. Jedi Outcast and Academy are so amazing because they really let you feel what having a lightsaber is all about, especially with dismemberment turned on

This was an excellent play-through and commentary. Great watch! Thanks

Great late night find to watch. RU-vid algo delivers.

Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie. Just because games were released for dos doesn’t mean there was no windows. Windows 95 was appropriately released in 1995, and it wasn’t the first windows os by a bit of a walk. Gaming on windows was held back for a long time. Windows had a shut down option for restart into dos. Keep in mind that these operating systems were kinda written on top of dos. Like command line wasn’t there it was dos prompt.

Considering I played all the games before it and the ones after LucasArts, I have to say that this one, along with the X-Wing/TIE Fighter, broke the mold. Clint Bajakian was already an old acquaintance for those of us who had bought a few games. For example, apart from the X-Wing and TIE, his work on Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is also great. It's fantastic how he modifies Williams' music a little bit to create wonders. For some reason, the part I got most excited about in this game is when you go to the prison to free Crix Madine and that part of the music plays, the return of the Jedi, when the rebel fleet has come out of hyperspace and the different wings start reporting on its status.

This was the game with the anti-Ewok graffiti easter eggs, iirc.

Great video. I was 20 when this came out and loved playing this. Correction though, Win95 was out when the game dropped but the DF had to be launched from the DOS prompt. I had to install a CD ROM to play this.

Excellent video, such nostalgia. Wishing your channel much success!

I remember this being included as a sample game (just the first mission) bundled with the soundcard and speakers set of Sound-Blaster back in those days....

Real quick corrections here: Windows has been around since 1985 (though not in wide usage until the late ‘80s/early ‘90s), and Disney had nothing to do with General Grievous, George Lucas was responsible for that turd…

I enjoy Kyle's voice actor in this, I actually find him very fitting. He really does sound like a storm trooper

41:14 “One thing’s for sure: they’ll never see me coming.” Chapter IV: They See Me Coming

It's not older than Windows. Early versions existed during the 1980s and early 90s. Dark Forces is only older than Windows 95.

Very well done video! You deserve more notoriety

i beat every mission on hard and in jabbas ship you need to punch out 5 kell dragons at the start its brutal haha

Nice video... I have a few comments. 1) I seem to recall being able to shoot the mines with one (or maybe more?) of the guns. 2) You didn't mention the secondary fire modes for the weapons... I believe that was a first for an FPS. 3) This was, the first FPS to have hand grenades (in the form of the thermal detonators)... you can make life much easier by using the secondary fire mode to bounce them off of walls to kill enemies without exposing yourself to them, that was mind blowing back then. 4) X-Wing and TIE Fighter also had a dynamic music system (iMuse, IIRC) before Dark Forces came out (though some of the music is certainly borrowed from the movies). 5) The 3d ships in levels were amazing at the time and actually helped set me on my path to my current job as a creative director. Even though you can't get inside it, the Moldy Crow and 3d TIE fighters also added a lot to the immersion. I actually brought this up with the lead engineer of a later game (Ghost Recon) because people were asking for helicopter insertions for the 2nd expansion of that game (Island Thunder) and the team determined it was technically infeasible with Ghost Recon's game engine. I mentioned the Moldy Crow in Dark Forces, told him to put some ropes on the ground and show a helicopter flying away. His response was, "We can do that." They did, and it seemed to please a lot of the people who were requesting that feature. One of my favorite techniques in game design is when you can't technically do/show something that would be really cool, then imply it... and just maybe you'll trick people's subconscious minds into thinking that you did! Ironically, things have come full circle, and now I have had a couple people working for me that used to work for Lucasfilm before it was bought by Disney, and one of them used to report directly to George Lucas! 😅

Oh man, I spent so much time playing this on my 486 back in the day. There's a lot of wonderful touches, but the one I remember best is a minor detail: If you punch a droid, you take 1 point of damage. Because you just busted your knuckles on that darn robot's shiny metal face.

I'll never forget being a kid in my dad's computer repair shop and seeing this game on the shelf. Obsessing over it. But not being allowed to play it because they only had the one copy for sale. I finally played 5 or 6 years later on the ps1 and was still blown away like it was release day. So much so that it never even occurred to me until JUST NOW nearly 23 years later that it WAS a Doom clone.

Dude all your vids are bangers!!! Thank you for making such dope Indepth reviews of what was truly one of the best parts of my childhood! Long live the old EU!! I can only imagine you've read the old EU books, I'd be very interested in watching any content you did breaking down those as well!

Wow, what a great cover of this old game. Never got to play it myself but I can really hear how much fun you are having with it. Love the running narrative you have, really makes watching it more fun.

I liked how the medal you got at the end was one of the same ones from X-Wing. The "Star of Alderaan" if i remember.

I remember playing this on my dads computer on Dos when I was like 6 in the 90s. It was the only thing I knew how to launch on Dos, my dad got tired of launching it for me so he showed me how to use Dos...at age 6

50:40 Yeahaha dude :D Great video by the way, I just found your channel :)

As a kid, I found the game at goodwill. I didn't know anything about computers, but I got the game running. The sound never worked. I'd play the first two levels so much, but the dark sewer level and sewer monsters scared me so much, that I just stuck to those first two levels until I got much older. Never got to finish it, so I'm excited for the night dive remaster to finally give it the full attention it deserves.

This takes me back to when I was 13 years old and got this for my birthday. It was such a great game. Although I absolutely hated the sewer level. The music really made the game and got you hyped up.

Dark Forces = JaN ORS Rogue One = JyN eRSO Always felt like that was a nice nod. Great video!

This game is still my all time favorite and my first time I learned about Kyle Katarn. My dad originally owned this game on the Macintosh but it was only a 3 level demo disc, so the PS1 version was the only version in which I can play the game in its entirety. I still like to go back to it every now and then.

Ah man, this game was something. I played it back in the day. Couldn’t last longer than an hour because I got motion sickness every time. But man, did I love it. I must have played that Death Star level a hundred times at least. There’s were all these fun hidden sections that you could find by running along each wall and spamming the action key until something happened. Good times.

The Dark Troopers in this game was more powerful and menacing. They were really nerfed down on The Mandalorian, since the ones in the game are suppose to be resistant to lightsabers since they’re made of Phrik.

Another awesome vid, man!

I have to say I absolutely loved this retrospective. But I do have to ask.. do you plan on covering Dark Forces II and the Jedi Knight games? 😊

This was one of the first PC games I ever owned. Learned how to make boot disks so I could go straight to the game. Ah, memories.

I've never played this game but am familiar with the lore. I love how a lot of it does tie into Rogue Squadron. It's a shame, as the series continued, they didn't have as many original missions in the sequels as they did in the first RS game that tie to the EU.

Rogue One: takes an entire army to steal Death Star plans Kyle Katarn: hold my corellian ale

29:00 there is a room you need to jump throw a window where one imperial officer has the red key. Inside there is a control panel that turns a large fan on so you dont need the gas mask

The prison on the ice planet took me forever to figure out. Stupid elevator.

Another awesome star wars video Evan!! I really hope you get around to the knights of the old Republic or the Jedi outcast and academy games. Would love to see those.

Thank you for the trip through game I had played so many many years ago!

51:28 You just earned yourself a sub.

Great video! Dark Forces was such an amazing game when it came out. The graphics, sound and feel were so far above other FPS or "Doom clone" games at the time. Absolute classic!

Brilliant video! Can we talk about how that weapons engineer moff had built his weapons lab in the sewers of a city? 😂 This was during the Empire’s heyday! Why did he feel the need to hide his lab in the sewers? 🤣 If there’s a lore explanation behind it, I’d love to know.

That was good Thanks! I loved these games back in the day. The iMUSE Interactive Music system was a feature of ALL LucasArts Games of this Time. Monkey Island 2, Day of the Tentacle, Tie Fighter etc. A FEW Devs had similar systems. Unfortunately Streaming music from CD killed these kinds of innovations.

Those classic Lucasarts midi tunes at 9:00 take me back man.

I was 24 when dark forces came out, and I played it on an IBM aptiva. I just remember at the time it looked amazing

Can’t wait to play Nightdive’s shiny new remaster of this, this year.

Awesome video awesome channel. Please please do the rest of the Jedi knight series.

Dude you have a headlight in this game as well. Suprisingly ive seen more videos where this wasnt known by the players.

This was one of my favourite game of the '90s and I still play it on my tablet Dos emulator! It's long overdue for a total remake the way System Shock is being done.

Great video, it brought back a lot of memories. I'll have to get the force engine installed and give it another go for old times sake. I'd love to see you cover it's sequel Jedi Knight in the future

This was one of the first games i played when i was about 9 or 10…along with a star wars flight sim called Star Wars X-Wing which came on 8 floppy disks. I have very very fond memories of the dark forces series of games. ❤❤