May the 4th be with you. What was originally an internet meme has now, for many, turned into an unofficial holiday to celebrate the Star Wars franchise. May 4th is when the internet becomes filled with people posting Star Wars memes, brands throw out Star Wars themed specials, and everyone takes a moment to celebrate one of their favorite sci-fi franchises.
While Star Wars is best known for its movies, it also has a long and storied lineage in the world of video games. There are A LOT of Star Wars games and now that the franchise isn’t locked into an exclusivity deal we can expect to see even more in the near future.
Since it is May 4th though we thought it would be fun to go through some of our favorite Star Wars games and reminisce about them. If you’re a gamer that also loves Star Wars and wants to celebrate the franchise today then you can also consider these our picks for the best games to do that with.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
One thing that we know about most movie tie in games is that they’re not very good. While Star Wars is slightly better about this than others, most of their games that directly follow the movies range from mediocre to bad, and that can make experiencing the movies through a video game unenjoyable. This is also what makes the LEGO Star Star Wars franchise, and the recent LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, so incredible. These games take the well known Star Wars movies, reenacts them with LEGOS, and makes the entire franchise a little easier to play through. Fun for all ages, these games do an incredible job capturing the heart and fun of what makes Star Wars so great.
There are three different games in the LEGO Star Wars franchise but we have to give our recommendation to the newest one, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Not only is this the only game to include the entire sequel trilogy, but it’s a complete collection of movies 1-9. There isn’t a better place to jump in and enjoy a movie, or trilogy set, than this game and while it’s a goofy fun romp through the Star Wars universe it never insults the fans. It’s a love letter to Star Wars and the best way to spend a day celebrating the franchise.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
So much of the Stars Wars movie timeline has been explored by other media, but almost all of it focuses on the time before the prequels, or between the original trilogy and the sequels. An often underappreciated portion of the timeline is the time period between the prequels and the original trilogy. The Republic has been defeated, the Empire has risen, and people are now under the control of the Dark Side of the force. Surely there are stories to tell during this timeframe?
One game did exactly that and it did a pretty good job of handling it all. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is set shortly after the fall of the Republic and Order 66 has wiped out most of the Jedi. However, some remain and the Empire is attempting to hunt them down. Cal Kestis, a former Jedi that managed to escape, is the star of Fallen Order and much of his journey is about reconnecting to the force. What Fallen Order does extremely well though is go through the trauma that Kestis and his new mentor Cere Junda went through when they themselves dealt with Order 66. It’s an emotional journey and a really well told Star Wars tale.
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Everyone has a favorite moment in the Star Wars franchise such as the attack on the Death Star or the Battle of Hoth. Now, what if we could play those moments alongside many original moments with airtight flight controls? Then we would get Rogue Squadron, easily one of the best Star Wars adaptations out there. Fans love it so much that when it was implied a remake could be made fans immediately began begging for one.
There are three mainline games, but the easiest one to get these days is Rogue Squadron 3D on Steam. The games all feature Luke, alongside fan favorite pilot Wedge Antilles, as they go about the Galaxy fighting the empire in a variety of vehicles such as X-Wings, Y-Wings, and even snowspeeders. What’s really great about this game though is that it lets us experience the thrill of a fight in the universe of Star Wars. Very few games have managed to capture that feeling even today. It truly is an experience that only Rogue Squadron managed to capture.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
While the Star Wars movies are great, what really makes the franchise as amazing as it is has to be the universe it’s set in. There’s endless potential and we’ve seen that potential explored in numerous spin offs, books, TV shows, and yes even video games. Few games managed to capture the potential of the universe the way Knights of the Old Republic did. That’s because KOTOR dared to do something many others didn’t: It went bigger and grander.
A challenge that many licensed games have is they can’t change anything that happened in the mainline series. So that means you can’t blow up the Death Star before Luke did, or have someone kill Darth Vader, because that would harm the continuity of the universe’s story. So what KOTOR did was it set its game over 3000 years before the original trilogies began and it dared to tell an epic story within the Star Wars universe. The result is one of the best stories the property has ever had and a game that is still beloved by fans even today. It’s a masterpiece of not only Star Wars but video games as a whole and a must play for any fan of the franchise.