Celebrate May the 4th with a good Star Wars game at your side.
Star Wars is a juggernaut of a franchise, and that never feels more clear than it does during May the 4th every year. Deemed ‘Star Wars Day’ by fans worldwide, May the 4th celebrates a franchise so expansive that its mainline movies are all but eclipsed by the sheer multitude of its videogame spin-offs. Star Wars and gaming go together like Porgs on a stick, and chances are that if you love this franchise, you already have intense nostalgia for some of its games.
We can think of no better way to celebrate Star Wars Day this month than to pick up a controller and boot up a few of the best games to come from a galaxy far, far away. May the 4th be with you:
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’ve heard of KOTOR. This decades-old videogame is legendary not just in the eyes of Star Wars fans, but the gaming world at large. It cemented BioWare as one of the best RPG-focused studios out there (for a while, at least), and gave players an adventure they could shape in their own image, in a setting far removed from the Skywalker Saga. The story takes place thousands of years before the Emperor started making a mess of the galaxy, and it features characters and twists that have aged incredibly well after all these years.
KOTOR is getting a remake but seeing as that project is going through development troubles, it’s well worth revisiting the original on May the 4th.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order introduced players to a young Jedi padawan named Cal Kestis, who was just trying to survive in a post-Order 66 world. By the end of that game, Cal took his fate into his own hands and became a fully-fledged Jedi hellbent on restoring order to the galaxy. This sequel picks up with an older Cal working with the Rebellion to do as much damage to the Empire as he can, but without the help of his old friends.
If you enjoyed Fallen Order, this sequel feels like a step up in almost every department, with huge semi-open world environments, exciting setpieces and a story that feels as authentically Star Wars as it gets. This franchise has its ups and downs, but Respawn Entertainment seems to have figured out a formula that works fabulously well here.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2017)
Honestly, Star Wars Battlefront 2 gets a bad rap. Electronic Arts and developer DICE annihilated any chance this game had at a smooth launch by locking playable characters behind unfeasible amounts of grinding and infesting the game with loot boxes. Even with all these controversies bogging the game down, however, it managed to bounce back. Years of live-service support added new heroes, maps and game modes that eventually added up to one of the most robust multiplayer Star Wars shooters of all time - maybe ever.
Today, Star Wars Battlefront 2 plays like a sincere celebration of the entire Skywalker Saga, offering epic large-scale setpieces fans will love diving into, ranging from the battle of Geonosis to Rogue One’s skirmish on Scarif. It’s disappointing that we never got a sequel to this game, but it’s also hard to imagine one that could top the sheer breadth of content we received here.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
Speaking of celebrations of the Skywalker Saga, this Lego game is the ultimate way to experience all nine mainline Star Wars movies in one surprisingly ambitious package. You can play through the original trilogy, prequels and sequels across multiple explorable planets with space battles, sidequests and hundreds of unlockable characters. Lego games have always been good harmless fun, but this one makes the franchise feel all grown up. A new combat system, smarter puzzle design and epic setpieces all make for a super fun co-op experience.
We loved playing the older Lego Star Wars games back in the day, but this sweeping reboot is aiming much higher than its predecessors. Both in gameplay and visuals, this goes beyond just being one of the best Lego games ever made, but one of the best Star Wars games too.
Fortnite
Fortnite has celebrated Star Wars Day in style for many years running, and 2023 is no different. The battle royale game has an array of Star Wars-themed skins from previous seasons ranging from the classic Stormtroopers to Obi-Wan Kenobi. This year, we’re also getting Anakin Skywalker to round out that roster of skins, which will all likely hit the in-game shop simultaneously to celebrate Star Wars Day. This won’t just include skins, but other cosmetics such as gliders, pickaxes, music packs and backpacks.
Last year, Fortnite celebrated May the 4th with special in-game Lightsaber items and a themed questline. We can safely expect something similar this year too.
Update: Fortnite has launched a Find the Force event ending on May 23, wherein rifts conaining Star Wars characters have opened up all over the map. These characters will give you special quests to earn cosmetics from a themed mini-battle pass, including Clone Trooper outfits and a Darth Maul skin. You'll also find Lightsabers scattered across the map, and Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala have hit the in-game shop - along with all previously released Star Wars cosmetics.
Star Wars: Empire at War
For a more tactical approach to Star Wars gaming, we recommend Empire at War. Years have passed since its release in 2006, and yet this game has remained the best real-time strategy game set in a galaxy far, far away - mostly because few developers have attempted to make a follow-up. Still, this is a great little RTS that lets players indulge in their Emperor-esque fantasies of conquering the universe one planet at a time.
As far as RTSs go, this is pretty expansive. Both story campaigns take place sometime before A New Hope, and allow you to seize control of either the Empire or the Rebellion to drive the other faction into the ground. You can control classic characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, but this game is more for fans who love the vehicles, army troops and planets associated with the franchise. Take to the skies or fight on land, and take control of the galaxy your way.
Star Wars: Republic Commando
Disney+’s Star Wars: The Bad Batch wasn’t the first story to explore the wide-ranging personalities of the Clone Troopers. Republic Commando broke away from the lightsabers and Force powers back in 2005 to tell a grittier story featuring the Galactic Republic’s Clone Army. This was something like Star Wars’ take on Call of Duty, revealing the other side of the battles between Jedi and Sith that involved more blasters than laser swords. Four members of Delta Squad set out on special ops missions taking place before Revenge of the Sith in this first-person shooter.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2005)
What’s this, another Star Wars Battlefront 2? Part of what made DICE and EA’s disastrous efforts in rebooting the Battlefront franchise so disappointing is that the games before them were wonderfully nostalgic. Battlefront 2 came from an earlier time in gaming when multiplayer third-person shooters like these were woefully unbalanced in favour of giving players the uninhibited Star Wars fantasy they craved. You had a wide range of heroes, villains and faction-based troops to play across the story campaign, multiplayer and other assorted game modes. All that, and it had split screen co-op too!
We’ll never forget the fun times we had docking into ships to sabotage the enemy during large-scale space battles, or conquering the galaxy one planet at a time through the Galactic Conquest game mode. In some ways, Star Wars never got better than this.
Star Wars Squadrons
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EA Motive Studio’s first game was an unexpectedly great standalone Star Wars adventure called Star Wars Squadrons, and you’re missing out if you haven’t played it yet. This is a space combat game that plays like a more action-oriented flight sim with Star Wars ships, which is not a genre we see this franchise dip into very often. Squadrons’ story campaign takes place after Return of the Jedi, following the New Republic’s Vanguard Squadron and the Galactic Empire’s Titan Squadron. Both teams come to a head over Project Starhawk, with the former trying to bring it to completion while the latter tries to destroy it.
The campaign also features Hera Syndulla in her first major appearance outside of Star Wars Rebels, so why not catch up before she pops up again in Disney+'s Ahsoka?
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Fun fact: this is likely one of the most expensive games ever made. Star Wars: The Old Republic is an MMO set during a time of uneasy peace between the Sith Empire and Galactic Republic, allowing players to pick from eight playable classes who each come with a three-act storyline. You can play as either Republic or Sith characters, and then further finetune your morality depending on the choices you make.
The Old Republic often feels more like a single player game than an MMO, mostly because its story content feels so much stronger than its multiplayer components. Still, there are few games that offer such a robust roleplaying experience in the Star Wars universe today.
