Star Wars video games

Star Wars
Genre(s)Predominantly action
action-adventure
Developer(s)
1996–1998:
Publisher(s)
1996–1998:
Platform(s)Apple II
Atari 2600
Famicom
NES
Super NES
Nintendo 64
Master System
Dreamcast
Game Gear
GameCube
MS-DOS
Windows
Mac OS
macOS
PlayStation 1
PlayStation 2
PlayStation 3
PlayStation 4
PlayStation 5
PlayStation Portable
Xbox
Xbox 360
Xbox One
Xbox Series X/S
Wii
Wii U
Game Boy
Game Boy Color
Game Boy Advance
Nintendo DS
iOS
Android
Nintendo Switch
First releaseStar Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
1982 (1982)
Latest releaseStar Wars Jedi: Survivor
2023 (2023)
Parent seriesStar Wars

Over one hundred video games based on the Star Wars franchise have been released,[1] dating back to some of the earliest home consoles. Some are based directly on films while others rely heavily on the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Star Wars games have gone through three significant development eras: early licensed games (1979–1993), games developed after the creation of LucasArts (1993–2013), and games created after the closure of LucasArts (2014–present), which are currently licensed to Electronic Arts, and include an EA Star Wars logo.

The first Star Wars games were developed by a variety of companies after Star Wars creator George Lucas licensed the rights to Star Wars video games; several of these games were released under the “Lucasfilm Games” banner. Early licensed games, released during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras of gaming, barely featured any kind of narrative, and many were action titles that either retold the stories of the original trilogy (1977–1983) or focused on a single scene of a film.

Later on, Lucas took interest in the increasing success of the video game market, and decided to create his own video game development company, LucasArts, so he could have more creative control over the games and their narratives. During this era, graphics evolved enough for games to be able to tell complex narratives, leading to games that featured more advanced retellings of the stories of the films, with voice-overs and CGI cut scenes, as well as original titles with new narratives that were set in the same continuity as the films. After The Walt Disney Company's purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012 and the closure of LucasArts the following year, the games developed during the first two eras were discarded from the canon in 2014 and reassigned to the non-canonical Star Wars Legends label.

Following LucasArts' closure, the rights to produce Star Wars video games were reassigned solely to Electronic Arts. Games published during this era are considered canonical to the franchise, and have featured more influence from the Lucasfilm Story Group, responsible for managing aspects of Star Wars canon. The EA Star Wars license had been set to expire in 2023, but in 2021, Lucasarts announced new partnerships for others to produce Star Wars and other Lucasfilm games alongside Electronic Arts.

Although many hobbyists and independent game developers have created freeware games based on the Star Wars movie series and brand, this page lists only the games that have been developed or published by LucasArts, or officially licensed by Lucasfilm.

As of 2020, there have been over 90 million copies of Star Wars games sold.[2]

  1. ^ "Star Wars Infographic: 40 Years in Gaming". www.igdb.com. Archived from the original on 15 December 2017. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  2. ^ Radić, Vedran (2020-12-05). "10 Best Selling Star Wars Games Ranked (& How Much They Sold)". Game Rant. Retrieved 2024-06-19.

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