Summary
The last few years have been pretty great forStar Warsvideo game fans. While EA arguably failed to really capitalize on the license properly, a few good games still managed to come out of it, withStar Wars Battlefront 2getting much better with age,Star Wars Squadronsbeing a solid dogfighting game, and of course, theStar Wars Jediseries managing to become one of thebest set ofStar Warsgamesever made. But while these games have been great, they still don’t quite live up to the golden age ofStar Warsgames of the mid-late 2000s, withStar Wars: The Force Unleashedbeing just one excellent example.
Released on July 29, 2025,Star Wars: The Force Unleashedcame right at the tail end of theStar Warsvideo game golden age that began with the likes ofLEGO Star Wars,Star Wars Battlefront 2, andStar Wars Republic Commandoback in 2005. And whileStar Wars: The Force Unleashedwasn’t a perfect game, it still offers one of the greatest power trips in all of gaming 15 years later.
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15 Years Later, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed’s Chaos Still Hasn’t Been Topped
At the time,Star Wars: The Force Unleashedwas a pretty huge deal. WhileStar Warsgames had been a prominent part of the gaming landscape for quite a while, with at least a handful of games releasing every year since the mid-1990s, there was a certain buzz aroundThe Force Unleashedthat hadn’t really been there before. On top of a huge marketing push by Lucasfilm/Lucasarts,Star Wars: The Force Unleashedwas also being marketed as the first trulynext-genStar Warsgame, a title that was going to really push technical boundaries and deliver aStar Warsvideo game experience like no other.
That’s exactly whatStar Wars: The Force Unleasheddid. With next-gen hardware on its side,Star Wars: The Force Unleashedmanaged to deliver the ultimate Force-user power trip, making players truly feel as if they were this all-powerful Jedi or Sith, capable of causing an absurd amount of destruction by simply flicking their wrist. From the get-go,Star Wars: The Force Unleashedlets players live out their wildest Sith fantasies. Thrust into Darth Vader’s black leather boots, players are given free rein over the Sith Lord’s ultimate Force powers, letting them fling Wookies off trees and dice their way through Kashyyyk with practically no restricting boundaries.
As players progress throughStar Wars: The Force Unleashed, this power trip only becomes more intense, and more satisfying. Taking on the now-iconic role ofSam Witwer’s Starkiller, players are able to Force lightning entire crowds of enemies, throw troopers into oncoming TIE-Fighters, and launch foes into the vacuum of space. The more players continue to upgrade Starkiller, the more they start to feel like the ultimate Sith Lord or Jedi Master, and that’s only exacerbated by the game’s spectacular set pieces. By the end ofStar Wars: The Force Unleashed, players will have killed multiple Jedi Masters, survived a fatal stab wound from Darth Vader himself, and brought down an entire Star Destroyer with only the power of the Force.
The recentStar Wars Jediseries has done an excellent job of making players feel like a Jedi Knight that’s relearning their powers and abilities, and that leads to a compelling gameplay loop across both games. But while players can pull off some cool Force moves, it doesn’t quite match the sheer scale of evenStar Wars: The Force Unleashed’s set piecesand moment-to-moment gameplay. Though theStar Wars Jediseries is a masterclass in franchise storytelling and Soulslike game design, sometimes fans just want to feel like an all-powerful Force-user, and 15 years later,Star Wars: The Force Unleashedis still the best place to go for that.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashedis available on Nintendo DS, Switch, PS2, PS3, PSP, PC, and Xbox 360.
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