Nightdive Studios have made a name for themselves by remastering numerous ’90s classics, mostly first-person shooters. Next in line is their Star Wars: Dark Forces remaster, which was announced in August. Now it has a release date: February 28th, 2024.
The remaster moves Dark Forces over to Nightdive’s own KEX engine, and makes it playable at 4K resolutions at 120fps. There will also be higher resolution textures, remastered cutscenes, gamepad support and more.
Dark Forces tells the story of Empire defector and mercenary Kyle Katarn, and features Doom-style shooting and circle-strafing in original trilogy environments. Expect lots of grey corridors and evocative sound effects. It was one of the first games I ever played on PC, although I never loved it like later Katarn adventures in the Jedi Knight series.
Earlier this year, Nightdive released their excellent remake of the original System Shock, and they have other irons in the fire such as a remaster of Sin. Not all their remasters have been hits however, as last year’s Blade Runner release left much to be desired.
The Star Wars remaster will launch via Steam. There are other ways to play a refreshed Dark Forces on modern machines, however. You could buy the original for £5 and then download the fanmade Force Engine upgrade for free, which will also let you play in 4K, with gamepad support, mouselook, AI improvements, among other tweaks.
