Nightdive Studios’ high quality remaster of Star Wars: Darkish Forces is a superb technique to revisit Kyle Katarn’s first journey, a landmark FPS that might give rise to a number of the greatest lightsaber motion video games ever. As identified by the Twitter account of Darkish Forces/Jedi Knight fan web site df-21.internet, the remaster additionally preserves a little bit of FPS historical past with its restoration of reduce stage, the ISD Avenger.
The Avenger served as a demo stage on the Client Electronics Present previous to Darkish Forces’ authentic launch in 1995. It appears to have been an alternate first mission, with Kyle Katarn storming the titular Star Destroyer and making off with the Demise Star plans in a commandeered TIE Fighter—simply the vanilla sort, not one in all its cooler (or lamer) variants.
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The story goes that it was changed with Darkish Forces’ first mission, Secret Base, after LucasArts decided it was too troublesome an introduction for brand spanking new gamers. Crucially, one last clue to its existence made its technique to retail: a screenshot of The Avenger’s wireframe map was left on the large field launch, tantalizing gamers with a mission they may by no means entry within the recreation correct. You possibly can take a look at the proof your self on a 3D scan of the packaging due to the web Large Field Assortment—it is on the backbone with 4 screenshots, second from the LucasArts brand.
DF-21 credit open supply Drive Engine creator luciusDXL with serving to Nightdive get well the mission—it was apparently current within the authentic LucasArts improvement vault Nightdive utilized in remastering the sport, however needed to be transformed to a brand new file sort and stitched again collectively right into a playable type.
The consequence could be performed straight from Darkish Forces Remastered’s most important menu, separate from the remainder of the marketing campaign. I can perceive LucasArts’ concern for brand spanking new gamers—the ultimate course of for accessing the Demise Star plans is greater than slightly obtuse, requiring you to flick a change revealing a secret room, flick one other change that opens up a hatch within the secret room, then discover a hid entrance to the ship’s air ducts off to the facet within the bridge.
The factor is, that is Jedi Knight and Darkish Forces to me! Till 2003’s Jedi Academy, the ultimate recreation within the collection by Raven Software program (now of CoD: Warzone fame), “not figuring out the place the hell you are presupposed to go” was one of many important, defining traits of Kyle Katarn’s adventures.
I nonetheless fondly recall getting misplaced within the last stage of Jedi Outcast on a current replay, wanting up a information, and discovering the video’s creator caught and working in circles in the very same place I used to be. This was baked into the collection from the very starting, its first public playable type, and now it is preserved for posterity due to this remaster.
