Star Wars: Dark Forces

Dark Forces is a first-person shooter (FPS). The player controls Kyle Katarn from a first-person perspective, with a focus on combat against various creatures and characters from the Star Wars universe, although the game also includes environmental puzzles and hazards. Dark Forces follows a central storyline outlined in mission briefings and cutscenes. Each mission includes specific objectives which are related to the story. The missions take place in a variety of environments across the Star Wars universe, including a Star Destroyer interior, Jabba the Hutt's yacht, and the planet Coruscant, where the player must infiltrate a computer vault.

Dark Forces' gameplay expands on the FPS standards set by Doom in 1993, and features gameplay elements that are now common in the FPS genre. These include the ability to look up and down, duck, and jump. A variety of power-ups are made available to the player, including health, shields, weapons and ammunition. The game also features several non-combat items to aid the player.

The storyline of Dark Forces follows Kyle Katarn, a mercenary employed by the Rebel Alliance. Before the game's events, Kyle was preparing for a career in agricultural mechanics like his father, but ended up joining the Imperial Academy after his parents were supposedly murdered by Rebels, whom he grew to hate. After graduating from the Academy and joining the Imperial Army, Kyle met Jan Ors, a double agent working for the Rebels, who had uncovered the truth about his parents' death: the Empire had them killed, and not the Rebels, as Imperial officials had told him. This revelation caused Kyle to distrust the Empire, and he eventually defected to rescue Jan, who was arrested for supplying information to the Rebels. Escaping from the Empire together, the pair became mercenaries, and eventually began taking jobs from the Rebel Alliance, because of Kyle's hatred towards the Empire.

Dark Forces begins with Kyle and Jan being hired by the Alliance to recover the plans to the Death Star, the Empire's space station outfitted with a superlaser capable of destroying an entire planet. The Rebels use the plans to find a weakness in the station and eventually destroy it.

Development of Dark Forces was led by Daron Stinnett. The programming was led by Ray Gresko, and the graphics and storyline by Justin Chin. Production began in September 1993, at a time when the first-person shooter genre was very popular. The idea of creating a first-person shooter in the Star Wars universe was inspired by fan mods of Doom which had levels set on the Death Star.

The developers of Dark Forces wanted to adapt the FPS format into an adventure game. To do this they introduced puzzles and strategy, along with a Star Wars plot. Originally Luke Skywalker was intended to be the main character in the game; however, the developers realized that this would add constraints to gameplay and storyline, so they created the character of Kyle Katarn to provide them with more freedom.

The PC and Macintosh versions of Star Wars: Dark Forces were well received. Publications compared Dark Forces to Doom, a significant video game in the first-person shooter genre at the time, but also indicated that Dark Forces improved upon Doom's features. Criticisms tended to focus on the game being too short, as well as lacking a multiplayer feature.

Steven Kent of The Seattle Times believed that the general aspects of the game appeal to most computer gamers, not just Star Wars fans. Kent argued that the Star Wars setting is a high point for the game, saying that the level designs recreate the Star Wars style well: "Though most of the Dark Forces sets are original to the game, they were created in the 'Star Wars' spirit."