A fan reverse-engineered 1995’s ‘Star Wars: Darkish Forces’ to make it simpler to play on trendy methods
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By trendy requirements, 1995’s Darkish Forces does not seem like a lot, nevertheless it’s rightfully thought-about one of many more important Star Wars games ever launched. Not solely did it introduce necessary technical improvements to the first-person shooter style, nevertheless it additionally went on to have an outsized impact on later Star Wars canon and spawned the Jedi Knight series. Nevertheless, like numerous video games from the mid-’90s, revisiting Darkish Forces might be difficult. Earlier than in the present day, your finest wager was to purchase a digital copy of the sport from both Steam or GOG and use DOSBox to emulate it on a contemporary pc. Darkish Forces is one of the easier games to get operating on DOSBox, however the software program might be intimidating in the event you’ve by no means used it earlier than.
Enter The Pressure Engine. The project is primarily the work of LuciusDXL, who spent three years reverse engineering LucasArts’ proprietary Jedi Engine to make the 2 video games that have been constructed with it — Darkish Forces and 1997’s Outlaws — simpler to run on trendy methods. With model 1.0, TFE is appropriate with each the GOG and Steam variations of Darkish Forces. As soon as you have put in the software program, it’ll mechanically detect the sport’s executable, and you can begin taking part in while not having to do issues like adjusting cycles in DOSBox.
What’s extra, it provides a handful of options to make it simpler to understand Darkish Forces in 2022. One huge addition is assist for contemporary widescreen resolutions, so you do not have to play the sport at its authentic 320 by 200 decision. Different optionally available quality-of-life enhancements embrace full mouselook assist and a brand new save system that means that you can make quicksaves. In the event you’re a fan of Outlaws, LuciusDXL says they’re engaged on including assist for the cult traditional shooter as a part of TFE’s model 2.0 launch. Whereas there is not any launch date for that but, LuciusDXL estimates it will not take them practically as lengthy now that they’ve gone via the method of reverse-engineering Darkish Forces.
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