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Star Wars The Force Unleashed 1, 2 & 3 Series Trilogy Review | Star Wars Force Unleashed 3 Cancelled

STAR WARS™: The Force Unleashed™ Ultimate Sith Edition

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Star Wars The Force Unleashed announced to be backwards compatible on Xbox One! Star Wars the Force Unleashed (TFU) series is a funny one - one part of the fandom asks "What happened to Force Unleashed 3?!", another part laments that The Force Unleashed series ever occurred.

The Force Unleashed series let players take control of the Force in ways unfettered by continuity or common sense. Throughout the 3 Force Unleashed games, players were able to wield Force powers the likes of which had never been seen before. For the first time in history, LucasArts and ILM collaborated to ensure Star Wars: The Force Unleashed trilogy featured Hollywood special effects and utilised groundbreaking simulation technology (Digital Molecular Matter, Havok and Euphoria), enabling gamers to live out their wildest dreams as an unleashed Force-wielding powerhouse.

The Force Unleashed series was a 2008 Star Wars multimedia project, spearheaded by LucasArts with direct input from Star Wars creator, George Lucas. The TFU Force Unleashed project was a content flotilla consisting of video games, comic books, novels action figures, LEGO and more.

The Force Unleashed 1, 2 and the cancelled Force Unleashed 3 was set in the fertile ground between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Darth Vader abducts and trains Starkiller, a clandestine apprentice to hunt down the remaining Jedi after the execution of Order 66. The games bridged the then-two film trilogies without compromising any existing canon and stayed firmly anchored in the waters of Star Wars. Vader’s apprentice is called Starkiller, which is actually one of the first names George Lucas thought up for Luke Skywalker.

LucasArts Project Leader Haden Blackman had previously worked on Star Wars games but has also written a lot of Star Wars comics and two of the Essential Guides. Through him, this Force Unleashed project brought exciting new ideas to Star Wars. It fit reverently with the source material, and it all feels natural. The Force Unleashed series took nothing away from Star Wars but left a lasting impact on the Expanded Universe.

Starkiller starts his TFU journey as the monster, but as he completes Vader's bidding, he starts to question his purpose so beginning his journey to the light. Starkiller’s journey made him a cool character for Star Wars. Since playing Starkiller, Sam Witwer went on to voice Emperor Palpatine, he was Darth Maul in The Clone Wars and he even got a role in Episode VII. Starkiller’s supporting cast of Juno Eclipse and PROXY, give the story that essential Star Wars emotional grip to counter-balance all the explosions.

In order for the player to wield the Force as a legitimately unleashed gameplay component, LucasArts corralled the output from 3 multi-million dollar software companies to complement their own in-house engine. The first of which was the now-commonplace Havok physics solution. These interactions are further enhanced with Digital Molecular Matter, an extremely detailed and realistic material physics engine developed by the second company, Pixelux Entertainment. The third Force Unleashed company was NaturalMotion, with their Euphoria middleware.

LucasArts wanted to make sure something visceral and cool happened each time you pushed a button in The Force Unleashed. Gamers were in control of a Force wielder whose powers were genuinely Unleashed. In fact, Starkiller’s power was so strong, it could reach outside of the Star Wars Force Unleashed universe, sending a great disturbance through the fandom.

A cancelled third Force Unleashed game promised co-op play as players controlled both Starkiller and Vader, who reluctantly team up to stop one of the Emperor’s schemes. Witwer was on board, and remarked that he and Blackman had spoken. Blackman though, had left LucasArts before Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2 shipped, leaving a large creative hole in the team. After the Disney buyout of Lucasfilm, LucasArts was an early casualty and all in-development work, including Star Wars The Force Unleashed 3, 1313 and more, was either cancelled or re-shuffled to suit the upcoming Episode VII.

Star Wars The Force Unleashed trilogy series were international bestsellers, praised for their compelling story, awesome technology, impressive art and Mark Griskey’s soundtrack. The second game attracted some negative reviews for a shorter story but both games are seriously worth your time, either as a fan of Star Wars or a fan of video games. The technology and the story will both be viewed, by me at least, as key milestones in the history of LucasArts and the history of Star Wars.

Star Wars The Force Unleashed - 2008
Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2 - 2010
Star Wars The Force Unleashed 3 - Cancelled

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