The Most Powerful Nostalgia 2024: Dark Forces Remaster shows me what I miss today

Older games also deserve an award. If in this case a new edition is due. This year, Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster showed me once again how nice nostalgia can sometimes be (it’s definitely more playable than a Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered) and what things I miss. For example, a modern single-player shooter in the Star Wars universe. If you exclude the Battlefront games, the last one of its kind was far too long ago, namely Star Wars: Republic Commando in 2005.

Like I said, way too long ago. And Republic Commando is ten years younger than Dark Forces, which came out in 1995. What’s interesting in this context is that it took until 2020 before we were even able to play the shooter without indexing in Germany. That didn’t stop me from doing that at a young age. This evil game, which ended up on the index more or less surprisingly, and not just for me, which is something you can’t actually imagine for a Star Wars game. It’s not like it was particularly brutal, but you know what it was like back then. Other times.

What’s in the name Star Wars

If you look at the E-11 blaster rifle in the game, it’s not surprising that stormtroopers are rarely hit given the spread. But that’s only on the sidelines. Actually, Dark Forces shows exactly what the name Star Wars suggests: shooting in space. Or rather here on planets. I liked and still like the original Doom a lot and Dark Forces plays similarly, so it’s no surprise that Dark Forces struck a chord with me. For me, being able to experience it again in 2024 was actually one of the most beautiful nostalgic experiences in video games in recent years.

I wish someone would come up with a decent, modern Star Wars shooter. Respawn was working on one, but unfortunately it was canceled. This universe offers so much potential for this genre. This could be a Republic Commando 2, for example. Or you could take a cue from the excellent Rogue One and show how the war between the Empire and the Rebels played out outside of the major battles around the Death Stars and Hoth. Just give me a straightforward shooter without an open world and with good staging, something like Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. I wouldn’t necessarily need modern technology. Think of Warhammer 40K: Boltgun, that could also work great with Star Wars and would certainly find its fans. The main thing is that you actually end up playing a mercenary, soldier or whatever. You don’t need a Jedi or a lightsaber for this, as Dark Forces proves perfectly.

Even if these are antiquated weapons for Obi-Wan and Dark Forces is something of an antiquated game from today’s perspective, it is still just as effective as the blaster that the Jedi master used to get rid of General Grievous make clear. From record players, retro games, old films and much more, we know that even antiquated things can always be a joy. Like this game. A piece of video game history and currently a rare commodity in the Star Wars video game universe.

Back to overview: The Eurogamer.de Awards 2024!