Nightdive Studios has been hard at work bringing us remasters and remakes of classic FPS games from a bygone era. We’ve already had revamped versions of the first two Quake games, and now the developer is bringing back Star Wars: Dark Forces. In a recent trailer on the studio’s YouTube channel, Nightdive will be collaborating with Lucasfilm Games (formerly LucasArts) to create a remaster of the mid-90’s Star Wars title.
The trailer (which demonstrates alpha footage) shows off some of the work so far. You’ll definitely want to check out the renewed cut scenes. Much like previous projects done by Nightdive, it’ll still look and feel like Dark Forces, but will be given a modern lift with 4K visuals, plus “advanced 3D rendering, modern gamepad support, trophies and achievements, and more.”
The original Star Wars: Dark Forces was released all the way back in 1995, and was the first in the Jedi Knight series. It was developed on the aptly named Jedi engine, which is a toolkit that shares similarities with Build, the engine that powered the likes of Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior. Nightdive’s remaster of the ancient Star Wars game will utilize the KEX engine instead, which the studio has used in a number of projects, including for the Quake remaster. We recently got treated to a modern version of Quake 2, which improved the graphics (particularly in the lighting department) while also adding quality-of-life changes and the DLC. At the moment, we don’t know when Star Wars: Dark Forces will be coming out, but it’s set to release on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
