Star Wars Video Games Return To Important Era Last Visited 30 Years Ago

With the upcoming release of , the franchise's video games are finally returning to an important era last visited in this medium almost 30 years ago. Kay Vess' story takes place between and, somewhere between 3 ABY and 4 ABY.

This era was last explored in, a multimedia event that spanned games, novels, and comics, with a wealth of merchandise produced, including a soundtrack and action figures. The intent was to create a story with all the commercial possibilities of a full motion picture release without actually making a film, in an attempt to reinvigorate interest in the franchise ahead of the theatrical Special Editions of the original trilogy being released in 1997, and the first of the prequels, in 1999.

While originally Lucasfilm wanted the project to focus on the main characters between the events of the original (which had since adopted its title) and, the game designer for 1994's and, Jon Knoles, suggested telling a new story between the latter films in the trilogy instead. This was unexplored territory at the time, as novels had covered stories after the trilogy, and covered an alternate prequel to as its protagonist Kyle Katarn helped secure the Death Star plans — something that was since retconned by 2016's movie — before jumping forward to a year after 's events.

has recently been remastered by Nightdive Studios for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC, and was released in February 2024.

Steve Perry's novel focused on what the main characters were doing in the large time jump between and while introducing a new character, the Rebel ally Dash Rendar. Rendar was a veteran of the Battle of Hoth whom Leia, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian hired to help find Boba Fett and Han Solo, the latter of whom was frozen in Carbonite at the time. Rendar would later save Luke Skywalker from swoop bike riders hired by Dash, help the Jedi to acquire the second Death Star plans, and sneak into the crime lord Prince Xizor's palace to save a