There’s a Star Wars sport on the market that’s exhausting to play in 2024 as a result of, for no matter purpose, it stays trapped on the hard-to-emulate OG Xbox with none official remakes, remasters, or backward compatibility assist. That sport is Star Wars: Obi-Wan.
Final week, Lucasfilm Video games and Aspyr introduced a remastered model of 2002’s Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, a sport that first launched on PlayStation 2 and GameCube. The brand new remaster is ready to replace a few of the textures, enhance the lighting, and even add a brand new flashlight choice, too. That each one sounds good, and I’m excited to see yet one more outdated Star Wars sport delivered to extra trendy platforms. Nonetheless, seeing Bounty Hunter get the remaster therapy made me take into consideration Obi-Wan on Xbox, a sport that launched only a yr earlier than Bounty Hunter that’s nonetheless trapped on the unique Xbox console over 20 years after its launch.
In 2001, two years after the discharge of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Lucasarts launched Star Wars: Obi-Wan as an unique sport for the Xbox. This third-person motion sport starred, you guessed it, Obi-Wan Kenobi and was each a prequel to and retelling of the Phantom Menace movie.
It’s not an awesome sport, to be clear. Nevertheless it featured some attention-grabbing concepts—like utilizing the fitting stick for lightsaber fight—and provided a enjoyable technique to expertise the primary Star Wars prequel earlier than Assault of the Clones hit theaters in 2002. Apart from, it’s not like Bounty Hunter is an unbelievable online game, both. But it’s getting a brand new remaster (after being launched on PS4 as a PS2 basic already), whereas Obi-Wan on Xbox is left behind.
The best way to play Star Wars: Obi-Wan in 2024
Star Wars: Obi-Wan by no means acquired a PC port, was by no means launched on PS2, and has by no means been up to date to assist backward compatibility on Xbox One or Sequence X/S. If you wish to play Obi-Wan you might have one good choice and one dangerous choice.
The great choice: You go purchase an OG Xbox and a replica of Obi-Wan. Set it up and there you go, you’re enjoying Star Wars: Obi-Wan. Nicely, that’s assuming the Xbox to procure works correctly and the copy of the sport you bought isn’t too broken. (Fortunately pre-owned copies of the sport aren’t very costly, so if it’s important to purchase two of them it received’t break the financial institution.)
The dangerous choice is emulation. I really like emulating video games! I’m not in opposition to it in any respect and I believe fan-developed emulators are an vital a part of sport preservation. So once I say emulating Obi-Wan is dangerous, I need to be clear that it’s not as a result of I’m in opposition to enjoying outdated video games utilizing third-party software program. No, enjoying Obi-Wan on an Xbox emulator is dangerous as a result of it sucks and is (as of this writing) not an awesome expertise.
For those who play on CXBX-Reloaded, a fan-made Xbox emulator, you would possibly be capable of make it via the sport, however many gamers have reported crashes, graphical bugs, and different issues that spoil the expertise. I’ve additionally tried to play Obi-Wan on XEMU, a special Xbox emulator, and had even worse luck—I couldn’t get previous the second stage. Whereas some gamers have been capable of tinker sufficient to get Obi-Wan working effectively on CXBX, it’s nonetheless not an excellent technique to play the sport.
Assist me Lucasfilm Video games, you’re my solely hope
So now, right here’s my plea: Somebody at Lucasfilm Video games, please contact Nightdive Studios, Aspyr, or one other developer that’s good at reviving outdated video games and pay them the cash to carry Star Wars: Obi-Wan to extra platforms.
Cleaned up and working at 60FPS, Obi-Wan can be a strong hit on consoles just like the Change. Plus the Star Wars prequels are at the moment experiencing a renaissance amongst followers who grew up watching the movies. Pleasure for prequel-era content material is at an all-time excessive in 2024 and I believe a well-done Obi-Wan port or remaster can be a slam dunk.
And if that’s not doable, on the very least it will be good to get the sport ported to PC so followers can hold updating it and modding it simply for years to come back. Or somebody at Xbox flip the swap and make this factor backwards suitable on Xbox One and Sequence X/S consoles. I’d take that at this level!
However what I really need is a pleasant remaster. It could save part of online game historical past and rescue a Star Wars sport from being forgotten. It’s actually a win-win state of affairs and it’s about time Obi-Wan will get the remaster he deserves.
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