How Star Wars The Force Unleashed paved the way for Jedi Survivor

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed came out in 2008, in what seems like a galaxy far, far away. The game explores the backstory of Starkiller, a secret apprentice of Darth Vader. Except that there is no frontstory. He is 100% back, existing solely as a footnote, an asterisk in the saga, long since Tipp-Exed from the official record. To play the game now is an oddity, especially in light of the release of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Compare the heroes of these two adventures.

In one corner, we have Cal Kestis, a bright and affable striver, borne along by the natural need to help out. Then there is Starkiller: pale face, military buzz cut, and a moist frown practically sculpted into place, like the expression on a Stormtrooper’s helmet. They could almost be brothers, separated at birth and coaxed onto warring sides.

Developed by LucasArts, The Force Unleashed belongs to a spikier time. Disney had yet to buy Star Wars and stamp out its weirder excesses, and all manner of wrongness lurked in its crannies. The notion of Darth Vader keeping a classified disciple may sound a little wacky now, but George Lucas was listed as a producer, and he gave the game his imprimatur—the story of Starkiller was canon, whether you liked it or not.

The good news was that there is plenty to like. The plot opens on Kashyyyk, home of the hairy Wookiees, where battle has broken out like a rash. The Empire is laying waste to large patches of forest, just for the hell of it, and you, playing as Vader himself, start hurling the natives to and fro with a flick of the wrist. You feel like a lazy tennis player, backhanding these fuzzballs into crunchy scenery. Within a minute, the meaning of the title becomes clear: the Force had been pent up for way too long, playing a supporting role here and there, but now it was uncorked, and the poor Wookiees were paying the price. The action is fuelled by Havok and Euphoria, and never have two graphics engines combined to so perfectly describe the effects they bestow.

Look at the trees and carved wooden gates, mulched into splinters, and watch as each Wookiee flails and flies with believable heft. It’s not often, in games, that the Force goes beyond mechanical fun and actually troubles itself with the heavy lifting of a theme; here, you instantly understand how such weightless power can curdle the morals of anyone. You get drunk on it, minutes in, but the narrative soon has to sober up. Vader slays his target, a Jedi in hiding, and adopts the man’s son as his apprentice. A Starkiller is born! We then jump to the lad in full bloom, or rather at full wilt: a closeup of his wide young eyes, as they morph into a grimace, the sure sign of a soul ground down by the dark side.

You are quickly dispatched on a covert mission, to off another Jedi. The game shares the setting in which Cal Kestis patrols, the strip of time between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, wherein the refugees of the Jedi Order are hunted down. (Playing Jedi: Survivor, I like to imagine Starkiller out there, prowling around in the wings after Cal and his kind.) Accompanied by a training droid called PROXY and an Imperial pilot by the name of Juno Eclipse—you don’t get names like that in Star Wars anymore—your job is to hunt down General Rahm Kota. The kicker is that even the Emperor doesn’t know of your existence, so Vader instructs you to do away with any Stormtroopers you find, as well. Before you know it, you’re off, landing in a hangar and lobbing TIE fighters at your foes.

Load up The Force Unleashed now, and you may be shocked at how quick real power is shoved into your hands. It feels cheap, despite the lavish production, because it strikes the same note as the old Star Wars films: B-movies, flushed with cash and inflated to blockbuster status. But the texture, both emotional and mechanical, has a lurid, tacky feel. By comparison, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and its sequel, assured and perfectly paced, treat the Force not as something to be unleashed but, rather, to be trained and house-broken, and let out for a long walk now and then. Nonetheless, Cal and Starkiller are both on similar missions. Whatever the junk of the plot, their true purpose is to remind us of the fun of being a Jedi—of swishing a sword of pure laser and yanking people off their feet with an invisible lasso.

Back in 2008, that sort of thing was in short supply. And so, too, is it in 2023. The success of Fallen Order, and now Jedi: Survivor, is that sort of two-prong win that has you pumping a fist in triumph and simultaneously wondering why on earth it has taken someone, anyone, this long. (You could sense a similar rush in those who loved Marvel’s Spider-Man, in 2018: a springy glee, tinged with deep relief, after years of games that had come unstuck.) The answer, I guess, is power. Not enough, and you lose the fantasy and the fun. Too much, and the whole thing spins out of control. Hence, in The Force Unleashed, the dumb sight of our hero tugging an Imperial Star Destroyer from the firmament with his bare hands.

That sort of thing wouldn’t fly these days, and rightly so. But I can’t help thinking of Starkiller’s exploits whenever Cal sweeps away a room of clattering droids; gives his lightsaber an elaborate twirl before sheathing it; or gets in touch, however briefly, with his dark side. I’ve also lingered at the workbenches in the new game, longing for the option of a red blade, to no avail… at least on my first playthrough.

Like its hero, The Force Unleashed certainly lost its way. I can never remember exactly where the plot, all about the formation of the Rebel Alliance, ends up, until I stumble through it all over again. And the combat soon loses its freshness, once your enemies start sporting Force-proof armour. But the game still has a kick—a crude, grin-inducing thrill, never more potent than in its early hours, which has come back to me this week. Where would Cal Kestis be without Starkiller, his opposite number, toiling away in secret at the behest of the Empire? Unmoored, most likely, with no one to pull him back down to earth.