A long time ago, in a California far far away, the world was blessed with the greatest and farthest-reaching entertainment franchise ever. Star Wars – the brainchild of George Lucas, the plucky and young writer/director at the time – has taken over the world not slowly, but like the plague. A great plague.
Among the EIGHT currently-canon movies, the two television shows, the thousands of comic books, hundreds of books, and merchandise up to your ears, is a veritable trough of Star Wars videos games. Considering this is TheGamer, it behooves us to speak about this particular sect of Star Wars branded goodness.
Through the years, plenty of extremely talented developers – and some not so talented – have had their opportunity to discover for themselves the wrath of a rabid fanbase, and attempt to pluck their place on the list of quality Star Wars games. This list isn’t necessarily the definitive list of Star Wars games (though we strongly suggest you play the top 10 at the very least), but it is a selection of some of the worst, and some of the best games ever to grace the universe we were first introduced to back in the late 1970’s.
Today, Star Wars continues to gain notoriety, and consistently remains the hottest intellectual property ever. People are soaking it up, and the video games developed around the franchise continue to get playtime (and even airtime – see LGND’s latest Let’s Play as they go through Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, or TwoBestFriends KOTOR Let’s Play).
Here is a list of some notable Star Wars video games ranked from worst to best.
20 Kinect Star Wars
There was a lot of hype surrounding Microsoft and Xbox’s entry into motion capture and player controller. It had long since been something on Nintendo was really trying out in the consumer market (to much success in fact). So when the Kinect was announced at E3 the year prior to the launch of the peripheral in 2010, the world was intrigued. You see, Kinect technology was brilliant in concept. It created a virtual dot-mapping (or motion capture studio) in your living room – virtually mapping your movement as a human figure. That gets translated into control schemes designed by developers.
The world got even more excited when Star Wars announced a Kinect game that would allow you to traverse known locations, swing lightsabers, and use force powers. What they didn’t want (almost everything they got) was poorly optimized inputs – it turns out that the Kinect sensor is spotty at best – that don’t function, a horrible dancing mini-game, and a lifetime of meme-worthy content. If you’re willing to put yourself through it, Kinect Star Wars is the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to games attached to this mega-franchise. There’s no beating around the bush. If there were, the Kinect sensor probably would be able to tell what you were doing anyway.
19 Battlefront II (EA)
To say that this game caused a wave in the gaming community, the gaming industry, and legislation, would be a gross understatement. You can thank Electronic Arts and their continue franchise of Battlefront games for the future landscape of gaming. There has been a widely adopted trend in gaming recently – involving smaller buy-in prices for games, but a collect-a-thon loot box system to unlock things. As console and PC games continue to attempt adapting to a Free To Play market that was unlocked by the boom of mobile gaming, there are going to be some missteps. There’s no denying that. With Battlefront II, a game already criticized for the apparent attempt at erasing a really great game (in the original Battlefront II), Electronic Arts took a swing for the fences and struck out.
Their loot box system was so sketchy and geared towards making money (and they had the audacity to try and sell players on it with terms like “pride & accomplishments”) that the gamers who played the game quickly turned to the internet to voice their discomfort.
So many things have come from the backlash of EA’s Battlefront II – including multiple countries the world over actually making in-game loot boxes illegal – but the biggest takeaway is that loot boxes, especially those that are pay to open or pay to acquire, are officially considered gambling. The game itself? Well, it’s not a standout product. Made far worse by the sinister development.
18 Galactic Battlegrounds
There was a time when everything needed to have a turn-based real-time strategy title in their franchise (a StarCraft clone) and it turned out great for the most part. Most generations have that one particular game-type that everyone attempts to ape, and there’s no escaping it. You either get on your board and ride the wave – enjoying yourself – or you can get washed and play something that’s less popular. For example, the current mega-trend is battle royale games. But you didn’t need me to tell you that, did you? You’re probably playing Fortnite or Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds right now.
The Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds might sound like a royale game, but its RTS roots are the inspiration that epic set pieces like the battle of Naboo or the Battle of Yevin deserve. In theory, Galactic Battlegrounds was ripe. No franchise has more iconic soldiers, vehicles, cities, or people than Star Wars does. But it’s perhaps the lack of resources that can be directly linked to a not-so-stellar final product. There’s some good things to unpack here as Galactic Battlegrounds does good on its promise of letting you be the general in some classic Star Wars battles. There are better Star Wars games out there, and much better RTS experiences.
17 Bounty Hunter
There’s no arguing that Boba Fett is often considered the coolest character in all of Star Wars canon. With the amount of action in the prequels and the new films, it’s odd to go back and realize that this character with roughly seven minutes of screen time has such a large fanbase. It’s kind of nutty. But it’s true. The Mandalorian bounty hunters of lore quickly became loved, and to coincide with the popularity of Star Wars Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace, and Star Wars Episode 2 – The Clone Wars, LucasArts (who at the time were at the top of their game) released this third-person action shooter starring Boba’s father, the newly revealed (in the films) Jango Fett. The graphics here are rudimentary, as this was 2002 of course.
Released on the PlayStation 2 and GameCube, Bounty Hunters was hailed far more for its backstory-defining cutscenes rather than its monotonous gameplay and general snooze-fest of a campaign. This is why, when you search for footage of the game from the early aughts, you’ll be more likely to find fan-made cuts of all the cinematics stitched together, than any actual gameplay from the title. There’s no sense in denying the place that Bounty Hunters holds in the catalog of Star Wars games, but it’s not ranked highly for a reason. There’s too much missing here and, to be brutal, this was the most lackluster era for things like graphics and controls.
16 Galaxy of Heroes
All hail the mobile revolution, right? If you’re not playing some sort of game on your mobile device then you most likely have a phone that closes. But even those had Snake on them. The majority of smartphone owners have at least one (if not a handful) of games installed on their device at any given time, so there is no blaming Electronic Arts for branching out its control of the Star Wars franchise to better fit the consumer’s everyday life, and their pockets. Galaxy of Heroes is actually my favorite mobile game to date. Across any app store. Much like Galactic Battlegrounds, Galaxy of Heroes takes an established and popular genre – the Squad-Battler in this scenario – and wrapped a Star Wars skin on it. But they took it a few steps further and made one of the most rewarding, and grind-worthy experiences on mobile.
There’s a lot to unpack in Galaxy of Heroes, with a veritable million different team combinations, consistent upgrading of your favorite squad members, and even ranked player vs player game types.
The beauty of mobile game development is the real access to a “living game” in which you can consistently (if you care to) breathe new and fresh life into your titles. Quickly adapting to fan feedback, franchise shifts, and even monetary gain, makes gaming on mobile platforms an ever-evolving process for both those making the games, and those playing them.
15 Lego Star Wars: The Video Game
Lego games became the bread and butter for those with children in their lives. Or those with spouses that don’t really play games as seriously. There’s something charismatic and hectic about running around a Lego version of your favorite universe, exploding things into bits and attempting to collect as much as you can. All while enjoying actually well-written stories, hilarious cutscenes, and phenomenal voice acting. Lego Star Wars: The Video Game is the first of two Lego Star Wars games on this list, because if you’re considering a list of Star Wars games, you have to include the one that started a never-ending waterfall of great titles. Even if you rank it sort of low, like I have here. But hey, fifteen is nothing to complain about.
Lego Star Wars: The Video Game came to PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Pc in 2005 and spanned the story of the prequel trilogy. Being the biggest thing to hit cinemas at the time, you can’t really blame the developers at Traveller’s Tales and Griptonite for banking on the prequels rather than make a game for fans of the original trilogy. Considering the Lego games tend to all kind of look similar, it’s surprising to look back and see just how rough this title looks when you compare it to Lego games of today – like the recently released Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
14 The Force Unleashed
At the height of action adventure games like God of War and Tomb Raider, and near the start of the end to the legacy of LucasArts as a studio, Star Wars fans were thrilled when Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was announced. Using some of the most epic and new facial recognition technology in motion capture, The Force Unleashed really shone (at the time) within its cutscenes. You can truly recognize facial emotions, and the actors that portrayed them. Fun fact: the actor that played the lead character, Starkiller, went on to voice Darth Maul in both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels television shows.
The story in The Force Unleashed is considered one of the greatest non-canon story arcs in Star Wars video games. You play as a secret assassin and Darth Vader’s apprentice. After finding you as a young boy, you are trained to kill Jedi, but kept secret from the emperor and the Sith. You are both rogue, and arrogant. The gameplay can become tedious easily, which is a direct influence on the games less-than-amazing performance sales-wise. But there is enough here that we can safely suggest you not skip out on The Force Unleashed if you get the chance.
13 Star Wars: The Old Republic
There are two Star Wars themes Massively Multiplayer Online games in this list. Both for good reason. Here we have the more recent, BioWare Austin developed Star Wars: The Old Republic. A direct product of the influence World of Warcraft had on the gaming world, SWTOR did two things absolutely flawlessly. It made you feel like you were apart of the Star Wars world, and it told an amazingly well-crafted story, regardless of which of the initial eight paths you chose to go along. In a world that has a handful of extremely integral and important MMOs, not one of them has replay value. The overarching goal of an MMO is to continue along with a single character for as long as you can, hence the never-ending content updates. However, the story in SWTOR is so strong that you’re going to want to play through the game in its entirety with at least a handful of different toons (characters). This amazing feat is the sole reason for the success of the game, and with BioWare (one of the greatest Role-Playing Game developers) at the helm, who can argue with that? SWTOR is currently winding down, but a slower-paced experience system is free to play right now and you should give it a try.
12 Dark Forces
A relic compared to many of the games on this list, Star Wars: Dark Forces is one of the only titles in this article that pre-dates the prequel trilogy. Released in 1995 for MS-DOS, and 1996 for the original PlayStation, Dark Forces puts you in the boots of a mercenary named Kyle Katarn. This first-person shooter took what made games like Doom, Heretic, and Duke Nukem and made Star Wars fans worldwide quake in their Stormrtrooper armor.
Dark Forces as a stand-alone experience isn’t really something to write home about. Your parents aren’t going to care that you’re playing it, but what is truly great was the adaptation of the franchise to fit a previously unsuspecting gameplay type. No one wanted a Star Wars first-person shooter, yet Dark Forces took the gaming and Star Wars communities by storm. What we truly owe Dark Forces for is that it became the first in a fantastic series that followed. What began with Dark Forces, soon became the Jedi Knight series, giving us games like Jedi Academy, and Jedi Outcast. After all this time, Dark Forces still redefined the way developers around the world look at the Star Wars ip, and if you take into consideration the number of things that this universe has been applied to, it’s astounding that LucasArts took the chance on Dark Forces when it did.
11 Star Wars Chess
If you’ve ever watched a Star Wars movie – and let’s be honest, if you’re eleven points into a list about Star Wars games you’ve probably seen at least one of the movies – then you know there is a universe canon chess-like game called Dejarik. It was commonly assumed that it was the chess replacement in this version of the universe. So it’s extra confusing when a studio like Software Toolworks (known for their tabletop chess simulation games) creates a Star Wars Chess game that’s inspired by real-life chess, and not the canonical chess equivalent. Inspired by amazing chess simulators like Battle Chess, The Software Toolkwork’s Star Wars Chess (man, what a mouthful of a game title) sees Light Side vs Dark in an epic chess showdown.
Scripted, animated battles are shown when one piece takes another piece, and quite honestly, it’s the better version of Battle Chess (yes, because it’s Star Wars themed … if you haven’t noticed, everything is better with a Star Wars skin … don’t quote me on that).
Dark Side featured pieces like Emperor Palpatine as the King, Darth Vader as the Queen, Boba Fett as bishops, and Tusken Raiders as Knights. The Light Side featured pieces like Lule Skywalker as King, Princess Leia as Queen, 3PO as Bishops, Yoda as Rooks, and Chewbacca as Knights.
10 Disney Infinity 3.0
In the height of the previous generation of consoles, a new kind of game become extremely successful, the Toys-to-Life genre. This new type of game brought physical toys into the virtual world. Gamers around the globe went bonkers for the collectible figures, that they would then place on a portal and use those characters in the games they played. Huge franchises grew from the genre including a Lego game (titled Dimensions), a fruitful Spyro The Dragon spinoff, and Disney’s Infinity series.
After two very successful adaptations of the Infinity games, including huge partnerships with their own IPs and Marvel, Disney banked on their newly acquired Star Wars franchise and announced that the Star Wars license would headline Disney Infinity 3.0 and take the create-your-own-world and expand it to a galaxy far far away. For collectors, it was a madhouse of hunting and plucking in order to acquire all of the uniquely Infinity-styled Star Wars figures. The game came in at a far second place in the order of importance. Though, the game was amazingly crafted, and the Star Wars canon you got to explore in a 3D adventure platformer brought tons of joy to the gaming world. Unfortunately, due to the decline, and near-death of the genre, Disney closed Avalanche Studios in 2016 and discontinued the figures.
9 Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
Here we are. The second of two Lego Star Wars games on this epic list. You see, what LucasArts did with the original title, released during the hype of the prequel trilogy, was open the door for an adaption of the not arguably, better trilogy.
The Original TrilogyStar Wars game puts players in the roles of the most iconic characters in cinematic history, as they replay the events of the first three Star Wars films (originally released in 1977 for A New Hope, 1980 The Empire Strikes Back, and 1983 for Return Of The Jedi). The playful games in the Lego series truly give endless joy to those that play it. The controls are extremely tight, the worlds are far more fleshed out than they needed to be, but all of this extra effort and polish has provided them with a franchise that has respect, and more importantly, the trust of gamers. People to this day, still get tremendously excited when a new Lego adaptation is announced. With franchises like Batman and Marvel, the Lego games have flown up the sales charts, and continue to be exemplary titles for couch-coop and family fun. The Original Trilogy title is by far the best of the series, and rides the nostalgia train pretty hard.
8 Galaxies
The truer, more complicated and in-depth Massively Multiplayer Online game, Star Wars Galaxies was released to the world closer to the insurgence of MMO popularity back in 2003. The Sony Online Entertainment run property charged (like most popular MMOs at the time) a monthly fee that was roughly $15 USD.
The original title for Galaxies was Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, but quickly became known as Galaxies to all the gamers and Star Wars fans the world over.
What games like Star Wars: The Old Republic would later correct, Galaxies didn’t really have an overarching story when it was first launched. Instead, the idea was that players could weave their own stories by heading in whatever direction they wanted. Later in the game’s life, a story would be added to attempt to re-engage their player-base. With both Space and Ground Combat, multiple branching paths of classes and trades, there was perhaps too much going on in Galaxies. Now, it would be more at home in the gaming landscape. But the MMO concept was so new back then that it took dire dedication and research to even understand the possibilities of this digital world. Games like the ever-popular World of Warcraft wouldn’t become complicated in scope until a few major expansions in. The vanilla game included with Galaxies was vast and it even garnered enough success to see three expansions. In 2011, SOE closed down all servers for Galaxies.
7 Battlefront II (2005)
No, this isn’t the same game listed above. We wouldn’t try to dupe you with two of the exact same entry on a single list. This, 2005 classic developed by Pandemic Studios and published by LucasArts, is the pinnacle, the peak of Battlefront quality. Though the second in the series up until that point, Battlefront 2 put this franchise on the map. If Electronic Arts want to stop screwing with a good thing, and give credit to their the game that gives them the opportunity and the established fanbase that they’re currently toying with, Pandemic should be the first person they call.
In 2008, Pandemic Studios was acquired by Electronic Arts – which is why they’re the ones making Battlefront games today – and only a year later was shut down. Pandemic set the standard for a series that is still considered the best of the franchise. Which is why as of only a few days ago, Microsoft and Xbox have made Battlefront 2 backward compatible on the Xbox One, because there is still a good hunger for this game, regardless of EA trying to stamp out people’s memory and making another Battlefront II. Get a copy and see for yourself. We promise that the first time you play as General Grievous, you won’t be disappointed.
6 Trilogy Arcade
Arcades were all the rage when the original Star Wars trilogy hit the cinemas worldwide in the late 70s and early 80s, and it showed in the presence of Star Wars game cabinets popping up left, right, and center. But one ruled them all.
The Star Wars: Trilogy Arcade is a monster of a rig, with a giant chair sitting in front of a gigantic screen. There is no easy way to miss the sight of this behemoth of an arcade cabinet. You’d be hard pressed, however, to ever find someone that would say the chair was comfortable. Knowing that thousands upon thousands would sit on it, the arcade company made the chair hard plastic to avoid sanitary pitfalls. So either you’ll run out of quarters or run out of spine strength. In the actual gameplay, you used a series of buttons and one large joystick (flight style) to partake in many of the original trilogy’s most dynamic, and cinematic moments. Battle At-Ats on Hoth, or dogfight Tie Fighters in outer space. The game was beyond that available at the time, and has since gone down in history as one of the coolest looking arcade cabinets ever. If you see one, play it. If you can buy one, don’t pass up on the opportunity to own one of the best Star Wars gaming experiences you’ll ever have.
5 Super Star Wars
Nintendo’s powerhouse home gaming console took over the western world with the North American release of the Super Nintendo (released originally as the Super Famicom in Japan) and with it came the introduction of a lot of hard side-scrolling platformers. With the likes of Super Ghouls & Ghosts, Aladdin, and Super Star Wars, fans were given the first taste of try, die, repeat gameplay that wouldn’t really become a niche (but popular) genre of gameplay until FromSoftware gave the world their Souls series.
Just in case it wasn’t clear, Super Star Wars is hard. The side-scroller sees the player traverse difficult landscapes, and areas from the movie, facing off against plenty of difficult enemies. The graphics were top of their class for the era, and still oddly hold up really well to date. Evergreen graphical styles truly died in the PlayStation and Xbox era. Recently, Super Star Wars was patched over for newer consoles like the PlayStation Vita and PS4, bringing a wave of nostalgia to the masses, and introducing a whole new generation of gamers to the torturous ways of the Super Nintendo era of side-scrollers. In 1995, Super Star Wars developer Sculptured Software was acquired by Acclaim, but eventually closed in 2002.
4 Episode 1: Racer
Something that the prequel trilogy really tried to drive home, and what parts of the new trilogy are trying to put forth, is that action in the Star Wars universe is fast. The best parts of the tremendously forgettable reintroduction to Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace (released to cinema in 1999) were the battles with Darth Maul and the Pod Racing. The video-game-like-sequence of inhumanly quick-paced racing was destined for the small screen, and in 1999 to coincide with the release of The Phantom Menace, LucasArts and Nintendo released Star Wars Episode 1: Racer. A truly fantastic racing game ripped straight from the best thing to do with the JarJar era.
The game featured multiple planets and track, with the entire cast of racers from the film.
It quickly became one of the most popular cartridges on the Nintendo 64 and, to this day, keeps its spot on the list of best games ever made for the console. The gameplay was as tight as it needed to be, there were no hiccups during important moments, and it helped introduce fans of the Star Wars universe to all these interesting and unique characters that might have only gotten a moment of screen time in Episode 1. Everyone had a favorite and no ones was Anakin. Let’s just let that sink in a bit. Mr. Lucas, if you’re listening. No one liked Anakin. Rant over.
3 Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Star Wars could have been a tale of many things. It could have included many invented things – it’s a science fiction story after all. The freedom was there. But being that the story was inspired by a particular western film, which was in itself inspired by a particular Samurai movie, swords and tradition were always going to play a big part in the story and universe of Star Wars. Thus, the laser sword, or Lightsaber, was conceived. Arguably the most iconic part of the Star Wars universe is the laser swords that both Jedi, and Sith use. Harking back to the older days of swords and shields in the face of technology and religion, the laser sword is considered retro in the eyes of the world here. The opposite can be said from the point of view of those wielding them, as Obi-Wan Kenobi actually states that blasters are “uncivilized” after blasting away General Grievous in Episode 3.
So when you consider what you need in order to make your Star Wars game extremely well received, you would have to consider the Lightsaber fighting to be somewhere near the top of that list. Which is exactly what put Raven Software’s Jedi Knight II on the map. The story was slightly above average and the gameplay was easily structured around frantic spamming, but the Lightsaber battles are still considered the absolute best the brand has ever received to date. Much more like an actual simulation, there are plenty of nuances and one-to-one control to learn in order to become a prolific wielder of the laser sword. There remains a loyal fanbase for both Outcast and Jedi Academy today, with at times thousands still logging on to queue up for online multiplayer.
2 Rogue Squadron
Red Five, coming in hot with a confusing entry at number two! You thought I spoke glowingly about Star Wars Episode 1: Racer, saying that it was one of the greatest games for the console it was released on, and yet here we are with another Nintendo 64 title even higher on this list. waves hand in front of your face This is the game you’re looking for.
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is the third greatest Nintendo 64 game ever made (behind GoldenEye 007 and Super Mario 64 obviously), and involves every major ship battle in the original trilogy.
Released right before the launch of the prequel trilogy, this game pays homage to the originals in such a way that has yet to be repeated in gaming history. The battles are so fine-tuned, the game so incredibly re-playable, and the stories you would tell your friends with the sometimes goofy gameplay. It is easy to say that with the oddly shaped, weird layout of the Nintendo 64 controller, that the gamepad itself was made just for Rogue Squadron, resembling a flight stick in many ways. Regardless of your affinity to play piloting games or your adoration for Star Wars, Rogue Squadron was among a handful of games that just about everyone who had a Nintendo 64 had in their library.
1 KOTOR
Hey! Remember that one time I mentioned BioWare and their absolute dominance in the story-telling department of modern video game development? Incoming payoff! Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is the best Star Wars video game ever made. Don’t @ me. For the diehard Star Wars fans, the EU (or Expanded Universe) is where all of the juicy stuff lives. Where all of our favorite characters that are mentioned or shown briefly in other mediums are flushed out and brought to life.
In 2003, the writing-heavy studio BioWare brought the ancient history of Star Wars to life with their hit PC, and Xbox game. The deeply well-structured Role-Playing Game came out of the woodwork and gave us the timeline dubbed “The Old Republic”. Set 4,000 years before the formation of the Galactic Republic, KOTOR told the tale of Darth Malak, and his battle against the Republic. It’s a classic tale of Sith versus Jedi, and included you – a player made character with real impact, extreme growth, and the ability to make choices. True RPG god-tier, the addition of it taking place in the Star Wars universe was simply a dump truck of icing, on an already delicious cake. There is nothing like KOTOR out there (except for KOTOR2 … obviously), so whatever you do, go back and play this amazing game.
