GamesFPSStar Wars: Dark ForcesStar Wars: Dark Forces' box art showed a level that wasn’t in the game: nearly 30 years later, we can finally play it thanks to the remasterWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesFPSStar Wars: Dark ForcesStar Wars: Dark Forces' box art showed a level that wasn’t in the game: nearly 30 years later, we can finally play it thanks to the remasterWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
The Avenger served as a demo level at the Consumer Electronics Show prior to Dark Forces' original release in 1995. It seems to have been an alternate first mission, with Kyle Katarn storming the titular Star Destroyer and making off with the Death Star plans in a commandeered TIE Fighter—just the vanilla kind, not one of itscooler (or lamer) variants.
Image1of2(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
Image1of2(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
Image1of2
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
(Image credit: Disney, Nightdive)
The story goes that it was replaced with Dark Forces' first mission, Secret Base, after LucasArts determined it was too difficult an introduction for new players. Crucially, one final clue to its existence made its way to retail: a screenshot of The Avenger’s wireframe map was left on the big box release, tantalizing players with a mission they could never access in the game proper. You can check out the evidence yourself on a 3D scan of the packaging thanks to the onlineBig Box Collection—it’s on the spine with four screenshots, second from the LucasArts logo.
DF-21 credits open sourceForce Engine creator luciusDXLwith helping Nightdive recover the mission—it was apparently present in the original LucasArts development vault Nightdive used in remastering the game, but had to be converted to a new file type and stitched back together into a playable form.
The result can be played directly from Dark Forces Remastered’s main menu, separate from the rest of the campaign. I can understand LucasArts' concern for new players—the final process for accessing the Death Star plans is more than a little obtuse, requiring you to flick a switch revealing a secret room, flick another switch that opens up a hatch in the secret room, then find a concealed entrance to the ship’s air ducts off to the side in the bridge.
I still fondly recall getting lost in the final level of Jedi Outcast on a recent replay, looking up a guide, and finding the video’s creatorstuck and running in circles in the exact same place I was. This was baked into the series from the very beginning, its first public playable form, and now it’s preserved for posterity thanks to this remaster.
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