Kinect Star Wars

Kinect Star Wars features four subgames. In its primary mode, known as Jedi Destiny: Dark Side Rising, players take control of one of multiple Jedi Padawans. Using the Kinect, the player uses their hands to wield a lightsaber in combat. Players also can lift and throw objects with the Force using specific gestures.

The story takes place during the prequel trilogy timeline of the Star Wars universe, beginning shortly after Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and concluding with the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. Body movement to control vehicles in specific sections of this mode. A second Jedi-centric mode, Duels of Fate, allows players to experience one-on-one duels with characters from the Jedi Destiny campaign as well as famous Star Wars villains such as Darth Vader.

Microsoft Studios had planned to develop a Star Wars game since early in the development of the Kinect system. Kudo Tsunoda, creative director for Kinect, said of this decision: "It's one of those things where you can see how the unique parts of Kinect can bring to life the fantasy of being a Jedi in a way no other game console or media can do." The release of the game was formally announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo on June 6, 2011, where the first gameplay trailer and portions of the game were shown. A social media application was released for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone mobile devices. It combined Twitter and Facebook feeds on the game in the style of the Star Wars opening crawl.

Craig Derrick was LucasArts' lead producer on Kinect Star Wars. The visuals of the animation were augmented in such a way to make the Jedi fighting techniques appear realistic because according to Derrick "What we found early in development is that no one wants to look like 'Star Wars kid' in front of their friends." It was the last game to be published by LucasArts.

Kinect Star Wars received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic. It appeared on multiple lists of the worst Star Wars games ever developed.

Anthony Gallegos of IGN felt that the game was simply a collection of minigames instead of the larger "Jedi epic fans are dying for." Meanwhile, Liam Martin of Digital Spy maintained that there was a strong sense of effort from the developer, and to simply "call Kinect Star Wars a mini-game compilation would be to do it a disservice." Martin praised the game's setting, which is narrated by R2-D2 and C-3PO. He did concede, however, that certain elements of the game's controls were unresponsive at times, and that this could cause frustrations to players.