Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (video game)

"This game is about kicking ass with the Force."

- Haden Blackman, in the March 2007 issue of Game Informer

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a next-gen Star Wars videogame that takes place between the films Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The centerpiece of the 'Star Wars: The Force Unleashed multimedia project, the game is to be released on the Xbox 360, and PS3, as well as the PS2, PSP, and Nintendo DS. LucasArts is working in conjunction with Industrial Light & Magic, Pixelux Entertainment, and NaturalMotion to create a next-gen Star Wars experience. The game will showcase Digital Molecular Matter (DMM), an extremely detailed and realistic material physics engine developed by Pixelux, and euphoria, a realistic bio-mechanical A.I. engine by NaturalMotion. The Force Unleashed was originally slated for release in November 2007, but is now delayed to the Spring of 2008.

Plot points

 * You will play as Darth Vader's secret apprentice and will help him exterminate the last of the Jedi.
 * "The young man has a knack for the Force and a dark slant to his attitude - making for a less-than-typical lead character for a Star Wars title." —IGN
 * "While your character is plenty evil-looking and wields a red lightsaber, company reps were quick to point out that he isn't a Sith at all. In fact, concept art shows the character wearing a sort of shackle on his wrist that Vader apparently uses to control him…" —GameSpot
 * Vader finally came to realize that the Emperor had tricked him into turning towards the dark side, but he thinks he knows it's too late to go back, so the only thing he can do is destroy Lord Sidious with another apprentice--i.e. the player.
 * You start off as a Dark Side Adept with the majority of powers at your disposal, from Force Push to Lightning. Throughout the game your powers can and will evolve to legendary strength.
 * The choices that the player makes will affect the outcome of the game resulting in several alternate endings including the "true" ending.
 * In the game, the player shares a love interest with Juno Eclipse, an Imperial who pilots your ship, the Rogue Shadow.
 * By the end of the game, you will supposedly have a deeper understanding of Darth Vader and how the events in the game affect his behavior in the original trilogy.
 * The story revolves around "redemption."

Secrets of Star Wars 07


In 2006, StarWars.com let Hyperspace members have a sneak peek at Star Wars: The Force Unleashed in a weekly feature entitled "Secrets of Star Wars 07."


 * 1.Force Repulse - "The first concept image from the biggest Star Wars entertainment event of 2007."
 * 2.That's Gotta Hurt - "Durasteel walls and marble pillars are no match for the power of the Force."
 * 3.Through the Fog - "The skies of this historically tranquil planet are once again filled with gigantic warships."
 * 4.World On Fire - "Imperial and Wookiee forces collide on Kashyyyk."
 * 5.Lost and Found - "On a world where much comes to vanish, a lone figure stands up to be noticed."
 * 6.Branching Out - "There's more of the Wookiee home world waiting to be explored."
 * 7.Wear and Tear - "Not exactly a scenic spot that would make its way into a galactic travel brochure."
 * 8.The Bigger They Are... - "Only different in your mind, my young apprentice..."
 * 9.Worlds Apart - "A galaxy awaits the next storm..."
 * 10.Greatly Exaggerated - "Reports of some demises turned out to be inaccurate..."
 * 11.You Can Never Go Back - "Some things are best left in the past."
 * 12.Under Protection - "The skies of Felucia are much safer now under the vigilant eyes of the Galactic Empire."
 * 13.Postcards from the Core - "These location studies show unfamiliar angles of a familiar home world."
 * 14.Maelstrom - "It was a storm... there was no other word to describe it. It was like a sick joke, since we were supposed to be the stormtroopers..."
 * 15.No Way But Up - "Sometimes, you can never have enough manpower to surround a Jedi."
 * 16.Droid Profiling - "An assortment of head designs to determine the look of what promises to be a memorable droid character."
 * 17.Jaws of the Sepulchre - "Some think them no more than mindless animals, but it clear that they know, respect and fear death."
 * 18.The Claw - "Some droids can't help being so grabby."
 * 19.New Boys in White - "An uncertain era produces a number of specialized Imperial forces."
 * 20.Crawling in Style - "These Jawas have used their innate mechanical skills to truly trick out their treaded ride."
 * 21.Grim Trophies - "As hobbies go, this one's hardly Jedi Code-approved."
 * 22.Camp Jawa - "There's plenty of bargains to be had, but show up early; the good stuff gets picked over quickly."
 * 23.Black and White - "Occasionally, moral dilemmas are this clear cut."
 * 24.Organic Pad - "A vessel of intriguing design touches down on a wholly natural landing pad on the overgrown plains of Felucia."
 * 25.Night on the Town - "The times may be dark, but the neon distractions help a bit."
 * 26.The Works - "Despite hazard signs cautioning about the dangers of heavy gas processing equipment, you just know an action scene is going to find its way into here."
 * 27.Speed Mode - "This souped up transport has the mode to fit the mission."
 * 28.In the Shadows - "Black is the new red."
 * 29.Tubed - "Botany fans, rejoice... these adventures allow you to really get into Felucian plantlife [sic]."
 * 30.Running the Trench - "Though a work in progress, this backdrop is complete enough to contain a lot of action and excitement."

Characters



 * Maris Brood
 * Jabba the Hutt
 * Juno Eclipse
 * General Kota
 * Palpatine
 * Shaak Ti
 * Darth Vader
 * Vader's apprentice

Creatures

 * Bull Rancor

Events

 * Great Jedi Purge

Locations

 * Coruscant
 * Felucia
 * Haroon
 * Kashyyyk
 * Naboo
 * Raxus Prime
 * Tatooine

Force Powers



 * Force Grip
 * Force Lightning
 * Force Push
 * Force Repulse

Organizations and titles

 * Galactic Empire
 * Imperial Navy
 * Shadow Guard
 * Stormtroopers
 * Heavy stormtrooper
 * Jedi Order
 * Order of the Sith Lords

Sentient species

 * Human
 * Hutt
 * Felucian
 * Togruta
 * Wookiee
 * Zabrak

Vehicles and vessels

 * All Terrain Armored Transport
 * All Terrain Scout Transport
 * CR90 corvette
 * Imperial I-class Star Destroyer
 * Rogue Shadow
 * TIE/ln starfighter
 * Unstable Terrain Artillery Transport

Weapons and technology

 * Lightsaber
 * Tonfa-style lightsaber

Information


From interviews, demos, and concept art, the following can be gleaned:
 * Haden Blackman is writing the story, which involves "delv[ing] deeper into Darth Vader's history."
 * Steve Sansweet confirmed that it will take place between Episode III and Episode IV, will feature both established and new characters, and its story "has some incredible revelations."
 * The demo shows a Star Destroyer in the sky over Felucia, although it was possibly only used to show off the graphics engine as opposed to reveal any plot.
 * The first piece of leaked concept art shows Vader, AT-STs, and an AT-AT fighting Wookiees on Kashyyyk. In the background is the Executor.
 * A second piece of leaked concept art shows Vader looking over a group of four people, presumably mercenaries: a Gand, a Human woman with a vibrostaff, a masked Human or humanoid male, and a droid that resembles a cross between Grievous and HK-47.
 * Another leaked concept art shows a hooded figure with blue lightsaber standing in front of what appears to be the crashed Star Destroyer, with spider-like droids approaching. The artist appears to have labeled the picture as "Raxus Prime."
 * A fourth leaked concept art shows Maris Brood, a female Zabrak, holding two green Tonfa style lightsabers.
 * A "Force Power Pre-Viz" video can be found on Star Wars: Hyperspace and also on IGN. While not actually using gameplay footage, it shows a Jedi fighting stormtroopers in several locations, apparently including Aldera on Alderaan, an analysis room in the Jedi Temple, and a ruined city that could be Coruscant, or possibly Nar Shaddaa. This video also shows several stormtroopers wielding electrostaffs.
 * In an interview released exclusively by IGN, Haden Blackman reveals more about the upcoming Star Wars game.
 * Based on the announcement of an action figure wave revolving around the content of the game, and an article in the March issue of Game Informer it is known that it will feature characters named Maris Brood a scantily-clad Zabrak woman with twin green lightsabers that appear to look like tonfas, General Kota, an elder Human "Samurai" Jedi with a blue lightsaber, and Juno Eclipse, a blonde Human female Imperial officer. The figures include a battle-damaged Darth Vader, Palpatine wearing a robe with alternating dark and light brown deco using Force lightning, an Imperial Guardsman wearing armor resembling Carnor Jax and armed with a red lightsaber, referred to by Hasbro toy catalogue and computer databases as a Shadow Guard, a younger Human male Jedi with a blue lightsaber, and stormtroopers wearing armor that resembles a cross between phase II clone trooper armor and stormtrooper armor. One is referred to as a Heavy Stormtrooper.
 * The March 07 issue of Game Informer features the unveiling of this game and confirms the title. It also confirms that Shaak Ti, in control of rancors, will be one of the game's bosses.
 * Force powers in this game are going to be over the top. When you Force push somebody, it's going to like a cannonball hit them in the gut. As for Force Usage, there will be a bar, but it will constantly regenerate. Some powers have unlimited uses such as Push, but more advanced powers such as Repulsion will take a couple of seconds to recharge. The control scheme will be akin to Psi Ops.
 * In addition to toys, it will have a companion book and a comic. Although the game will have multiple endings, the book and comic will follow the sole canonical ending.

Game technology
The Force Unleashed uses 'Ronin', a game engine developed by LucasArts. It integrates the physics engines Havok and Digital Molecular Matter.

euphoria
The use of euphoria, from NaturalMotion, will give characters advanced bio-mechanical AI, allowing characters to realistically respond to changes in the environment.

"Well, you probably Force pushed a stormtrooper or two as Kyle Katarn in a Jedi Knight game, right? Imagine if that stormtrooper was able to stop his progress by grabbing onto a railing and then proceeded to grab a gun beside him and fire back at Kyle -- all this because his biomechanical AI simply knew that that's the best thing for him to do. That's euphoria in action."

- Haden Blackman



Digital Molecular Matter
DMM creates truly interactive environments that behave as they do in real life. Materials in games usually break in predetermined ways. DMM calculates the breakpoint in real-time. It simulates what would happen to a material when broken, shattered, cut into two, snapped, splintered, pushed, squeezed, etc. It is exclusive to LucasArts until September 2008.

"Now, imagine that Kyle pushes another stormtrooper into a building with so much force that you'd expect the stormtrooper to make a permanent dent in the wall. That happens with DMM, and no matter how many times you throw that stormtrooper into that wall, it will look different every single time, and still always look authentic. In fact, if you hit him hard enough and the building is dilapidated enough, the whole thing might collapse on the stormtrooper, because DMM also takes into account the actual physical mass of an object and the ways in which objects are constructed. Even with euphoria in place, there's no getting up from that!"

- Haden Blackman

Industrial Light & Magic
ILM is partnering with LucasArts to deliver movie-quality special effects in real-time for the game.

"The ILM partnership has been very fruitful. They are utilizing Zeno, their digital editor, originally made for film. LucasArts adopted it for games, and now they have a common pipeline for assets, VFX, and other elements. They're working on likeness captures and facial motion capture technologies, to get really accurate performances. ILM is one of the forefront workers in fluid dynamics, and so they're hoping to utilize that as well with true water simulation. They're sharing engineers across the company, leveraging the expertise of both companies to produce more powerful results. ILM is getting something out of it too. They'll be using some of LucasArts' tech to do pre-visualiation on films; using the Ronin engine to make animatics for big-budget Hollywood flicks."

- Slashdot

Official sites/links

 * Official game website
 * StarWars.com official discussion thread
 * Hyperspace Horizon: Summer 2006 and Beyond... on Hyperspace
 * "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Continues the Star Wars Adventure This November"
 * "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Production Diaries"
 * "Production Diary: How It All Began"
 * "This Fall: The Force Unleashed: Art of the Game"
 * "Production Diary: A Tale of Many Storylines"
 * "Production Diary: The Concept of The Force Unleashed"
 * "The Force Unleashed: From Concept to Console"
 * "Production Diary: The Art of Amy Beth Christenson"
 * "Tech Demo: DMM Unleashed"
 * "Production Diary: Partnerships to Rule the Galaxy"
 * "Tech Demo: DMM Unleashed"
 * "Production Diary: Partnerships to Rule the Galaxy"

Fan sites/links

 * Unofficial Force Unleashed Website
 * Force Unleashed Fansite
 * IGN Article
 * IGN Interview
 * GameSpot GDC 07 Impressions
 * IGN Video: Force Power Pre-Viz
 * IGN Concept Art
 * Concept Art
 * CVG exclusive
 * New York Times archive
 * Action figure gallery
 * Gamefront
 * The Force Unleashed Unofficial Website
 * The Force Unleashed Fansite, *Force Unleashed Forums
 * Petition to Lucas Arts about making a PC-version of the game
 * Slashdot GDC Article

The Force Unleashed