The Best Star Wars Universe Games

By the end of last month, the new Star Wars Universe game was released: Star Wars Outlaws, where the focus is on the protagonist who’s a mercenary, which is relatively unseen, since the huge majority of main characters in the franchise are Jedis. The opinions about the game are divided, on Metacritic it got a Metascore of 76 with the critics, which is positive, but doesn’t put the game on masterpiece level, and the users’ evaluations gave it a 5,5 score.

Regardless of discussing if the game is the first declared open world game in the Star Wars franchise (Hello Fallen Order, where we can travel from planet to planet with our ship), the constant releases, series and games bring us a question: what are the best Star Wars games ever released? Today, we’re going to discuss it and check the best titles of this universe.

Released in 2003, Knights of the Old Republic is considered by many Star Wars lovers as the best game launched in its universe, and its remake is currently being developed. The game takes place four thousand years before the movies, with the ascension of the Galactic Empire. Here, the main character takes the role of being the reminiscing hope of an ancient Jedi Order. However, as an RPG, the choices made rearrange the story development, such as fighting for the restoration of the Republic, or attending to the calls of the Dark Side?

KotR counts with 8 planets, many ways of using the Force, and customizable characters. To those who are looking for a classic, or simply one of the best Star Wars RPGs ever made, it’s an excellent choice.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was released during the golden age of Hack’n Slashes, like God of War, and put the successful franchise into the genre. Therefore, as a Hack’n’Slash, it attracted many people with its action packed gameplay. It’s also worth mentioning that, today, there isn’t such a thing like the supposed SW expanded universe, so the Starkiller storyline isn’t considered canonical to any event.

Starkiller, our main character, is a secret apprentice of Darth Vader, who serves as the right hand of the Sith and goes on missions to eliminate the last few living Jedi on far away planets, and further establishing even more Vader’s influence on the Empire. On the second game of the series, though, the protagonist gets tired of following the Sith’s plans and decides to follow his own path. If you’re a God of War, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and/or Devil May Cry, it’s definitely worth the shot.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order had a positive reception by old and new fans of the franchise, and for many reasons: it’s a third-person action game that takes the best of recent combat and adventure games’ influences, such as Dark Souls, to bring an experience that is both balanced and challenging.

There are those who say this game is a Soulslike for having a similar combat system, parrying system and customization to a certain degree; The game also takes advantage of the bonfire mechanic, which challenges the player on administering how many combats are possible until the next healing, the experience system, among others. In its storyline, we play as a Padawan who escaped Order 66 (from Episode III - The Revenge of the Sith). With nowhere to go and no master to resume his training, the protagonist looks for hints and leads as he explores the galaxy to try and re-establish a potential new Jedi Order. The game brings focus to many characters that had not been depicted before, like the Witches of Dathomir, and a very immersive plotline: highly recommended for both fans of the franchise and Soulslike-ish games.

The original Star Wars Battlefront 2 marked a milestone for its era, where massive combat type of games were starting to be noticed, and even with the majority of the players unable to use the Multiplayer feature, the game itself has such a good combat that it’s still worth it. The game, besides others on this list, has a high score on Metacritic, with an outstanding 83 Metascore, and an 8.9 from users’ evaluation.

Here, you’re put in the role of a soldier in many worlds and battles of the Star Wars universe, on a massive clash for the military dominance of a planet, and this combat can be on land or in space using spaceships. There are four factions available in the franchise: The Rebels, the Republic, the Galactic Empire and the Separatists. In Story Mode, we’re put in the shoes of an Imperial Clone veteran executing his missions, which are open and can be done as the player prefers.

Besides Story Mode, we also got the Galactic Conquest Mode, where the player takes control of one of the factions against the others, and takes turns attacking different planets to establish dominance over the Galaxy. Also, it’s possible to play as many different heroes in combat, like Obi Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Darth Vader. The game got a remake with all the most current technologies, bringing it to more similarity to games like Battlefield, quite different from the original.

While Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga was already a great game of both Star Wars and Lego franchises, The Skywalker Saga, released in 2022, brought all the features that already made it a great game, and added many new quality improvements. The game goes through all the arcs of the movies, and the player can play as any character that is present during the ongoing event, bringing a great connection between the old generation (Episodes I to VI) and the most recent one.

Combat mechanics were also updated, and the characters are now properly voice acted, which is also pretty cool. With modern graphics, the game is also aesthetically pleasant, like every Lego game usually is. Playing it with friends is one of the most fun ways of experiencing this title and its lore.

These are the Star Wars universe games that, in a more expressive way, marked both my affective memory and how much I’d like to enjoy a game. We have countless other great titles in the franchise, like Star Wars Rogue Squadron, Star Wars Dark Forces, and I can barely wait for the remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.