Star Wars video games have been around nearly as long as the iconic film series has, letting players journey to a galaxy far, far away for decades. Some have tried to recreate the movies, others have offered new stories set somewhere in the canon of the Skywalker Saga, and others still have carved out their own corners of the galaxy.
There’s certainly no shortage of games to choose from, but we’ve tapped into the Force and whittled down the list to what we consider the 10 best Star Wars games of all time.
These entries stretch across console generations, genres, and stories, but they’ve all captivated us in their own way.
Read this list, you should.
10. Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (SNES, 1994)
Super Return of the Jedi is one of the best Star Wars games made, particularly for earlier generation consoles. Its debut on Super Nintendo systems in 1994 offered a fitting end to the Super Star Wars saga, which loosely adapted the original trilogy.
Return of the Jedi, in particular, delivered an incredible soundtrack, which hearing it now is an instant hit of nostalgia, especially for anyone who spent their youth trying to beat those pesky boss levels.
The characters from the films were fun to play as, the levels had a moderate but rewarding platforming difficulty, and the weapons offered a rare unique variety of type and power.
Super Return of the Jedi remains one of the best film adaptations in the last 25+ years, and certainly one of the best Star Wars games around.
9. Star Wars Dark Forces (1995, MS-DOS, MAC)
When you think of ’90s first-person shooters, Doom and Quake are often the most recognizable ones, for obvious reasons. Yet Star Wars: Dark Forces is another first-person shooter among the best to come out during that decade.
While it lacked a multiplayer feature, Dark Forces more than made up for it with solid graphics for the time and superb level design that provided a good challenge throughout. It also introduced Star Wars fans to Kyle Katarn, a major character in Star Wars video games for years to come.
8. Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005, PS2, Xbox, PC, PSP)
2005’s Star Wars: Battlefront II took the foundations of the first Battlefront—specifically the Battlefield-inspired multiplayer -and added an engaging single-player story mode on top of that solid bedrock. It’s something the budding franchise didn’t need, yet still pulled off surprisingly well.
Its story is told from the perspective of a clone trooper (voiced by Jango Fett himself, Temura Morrison) fighting in the Republic’s 501st Legion against Seperatist forces. Battlefront II’s matches have the same feature set as the first Battlefront, but with a few notable additions:
– Playable Heroes like Darth Vader and Prequel-era Obi-Wan, and Space Assault, arguably the best of the multiplayer modes.
– In Space Assault, two teams assault the opposing faction’s capital ship via starfighters until key systems are knocked out. It’s similar to Battlefield 2142’s Titan mode, but with Star Wars ships. And it’s a lot of fun.
7. Star Wars: Republic Commando (2005, Xbox, PC)
Star Wars: Republic Commando is another Star Wars shooter from 2005 that is worth your time. While most people probably think of Jedi and space combat when Star Wars comes to mind, Republic Commando changes the pace, offering military-style combat that puts the troopers of the Clone Wars front and center. Although the multiplayer leaves a lot to be desired, the crown jewel of Republic Commando is the single-player campaign.
Assuming the role of a clone squad leader, using squad commands to direct your fellow troopers is fun and rewarding, thanks to the good squadmate AI that really adds a lot of fun and keeps things fresh as you run through missions.
While the Clones have, of course, been thrust into the spotlight in TV animated series like The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch, Republic Commando is one of the best examples of how to apply their stories to a game.
6. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019, PC, PS4, Xbox One)
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is one of the best single-player Star Wars games to come out in recent memory. Set five years after the events of Revenge of the Sith, players control Padawan Cal Kestis, one of the last surviving Jedi following Order 66, as he traverses across the galaxy attempting to complete his training and rebuild the Jedi Order.
While the Soulsborne-esque combat can be challenging, it’s a rewarding system to master with the energetic and fast-paced lightsaber and Force combat.
There’s also clearly a Metroidvania influence at work, but it’s put to great effect in allowing you to explore a host of planets, unlock customization options for Cal, your lightsaber, and one of the sweetest droids around, BD-1.
Jedi: Fallen Order is hopefully just the start of a new franchise, but it’s an incredible beginning.
5. Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader (GameCube)
Rogue Leader was a showcase for the Gamecube at release, and it’s easy to see why. More than its visuals, however, the second Rogue Squadron boasted one of the finest renditions of the famous Trench Run ever to be featured in a video game.
Compared to its more complicated cousin TIE Fighter, Rogue Leader is an unrepentant arcade game, pitting you against waves of TIEs in a variety of familiar Star Wars settings in a robust package that also included bonus ships and missions, allowing you to fly everything from the Millennium Falcon to the Naboo N-1 Fighter.
It’s a complete Star Wars nerd experience, serving as both one of the best Star Wars games ever and one of the best GameCube games. We’d love a proper re-release now, thank you.
4. Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast (2002, PC, OS X, GameCube, Xbox)
While Star Wars: Dark Forces introduced us to the scrappy antihero Kyle Katarn, and Jedi Knight saw him embrace the Force, Jedi Outcast is where Katarn really shined.
Jedi Outcast still gave you a plethora of weapons to wield and sprawling levels to explore that the series had come to be known for, but nothing quite compared to its lightsaber combat at the time, thanks to its inclusion of many Force-infused Sith determined to stop you on your quest.
Chaining together force powers with three different lightsabers stances made every single encounter feel intense – and nothing was quite as satisfying as seeing the slowed down 360 degree camera spin after cutting an opponent’s arm off.
Even facing off against regular stormtroopers never got old, thanks to the ability to freely force choke and fling enemy troopers off a cliff on a whim.
Come back Kyle Katarn, we miss you!
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga is a compilation of the first six episodes in the Skywalker Saga, representing two great LEGO games in one.
LEGO games are great for both young and old fans alike, and the LEGO Star Wars games exemplify this, with goofy retellings of the original Star Wars stories and a ton of replayability thanks to the many collectibles players can scour a galaxy far, far away for.
TT Games has applied its LEGO formula, and expanded on it, with a number of different franchises, but the developers struck gold with the design of the LEGO Star Wars games, which offered a blueprint for years to come.
While Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is releasing soon, we still find a lot of charm in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, and not just because of the gibberish the characters speak in cutscenes.
2. Star Wars: TIE Fighter (1994, Microsoft Windows, DOS, Macintosh, Classic Mac OS)
TIE Fighter is still the best game about the Empire ever made. The sequel to X-wing, it casts you as a TIE pilot who has to navigate Imperial intrigue while shooting down many, many X-wings, Y-wings, and Z-95 Headhunters.
Boasting a surprisingly strong story spanning much of the original trilogy, few flight simulators do a better job of mixing complex mechanics with accessible arcade gameplay as TIE Fighter does. More importantly, it gave us the TIE Defender — the hot rod of the TIE lineup.
So many Star Wars games cast you in the role of the Empire only to cop out and let your character see the light. TIE Fighter embraces the Empire for the nefarious villains they are, and it’s better for it.
1. Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic (2003, Xbox, PC)
And of course, no list of the best Star Wars games could be complete without mentioning Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Set thousands of years before the events of the movies, Knights of the Old Republic was something extraordinary as it provided fans of the franchise a completely different look at the Star Wars universe.
While other games on the list certainly added depth to the Star Wars lore, Knights of the Old Republic fully immerses you in this fictional universe with rich additions to what we knew of the galaxy at the time.
Nothing has quite delivered on the promise of being a Jedi traversing the galaxy going on an epic space adventure that is filled to the brim with memorable locations, quests, and interesting characters quite like KOTOR.
And that is why, nearly 20 years later, Knights of the Old Republic is remembered not only as a gold standard for the RPG genre, but also as a highpoint in Star Wars video games.
Those are our picks for the 10 best Star Wars games of all time. Did you agree with the list, or think we’re a bunch of scruffy headed nerf herders? Let us know what Star Wars games are your favorites.
