Welcome to our brand new series. As huge video games fans, we’re always looking ahead to the next comic book game. In this series, we take a character or a group and try to organize what a video game could look like with this specific character or group. It’s up to you to decide if you think it works or not.
Star Wars has been a place for many years that has suffered from lackluster video games, especially as of late. It feels like everything that has been put out has been met with such mixed reception, even the latest Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order which was my all-time favourite video game.
I do feel like this is something that is going to improve as the years come by, simply because the Star Wars license for games is no longer tied to EA, albeit if EA will still continue to put out Star Wars games. It does mean this could likely push EA to make much better games.
One of the characters that deserve more is Darth Vader. From television to movies, all the way to video games.
Why this character?
Darth Vader is one of the most powerful sith to ever live. He’s also got one of the most fascinating stories of any character in history, as there are so many different aspects to the character. He was one a slave, to becoming one of the best Jedi ever, to then being bested in battle and being confined to a suit, only designed to cause him pain, anguish, and misery. He overcomes all of that after losing his limbs, being disfigured and scarred for life.
There are many angles you can take the character, but one of the many things that will bring forward is the story. People often forget just how much Darth Vader has gone through, and it’s mainly stuff that we have never seen in the movies.
What type of game would you do?
I would choose a mix of action/survival with RPG elements in there as well. My game would be fairly linear but with different paths based on the choices you make as the vicious Sith Lord.
The game would be purely focused on the story, detailing what Vader went through in order to transition from Anakin Skywalker. I would also start the game as Anakin in his few final moments before the duel with Obi-Wan, so viewers and gamers can gain an understanding of what his thoughts were during all of that.
In battle, your suit would have a health system, the more damage you take, the worse it gets but the more powerful and angry you become. This is where the survival element would come in, meaning if you’re being destroyed in a battle, you can retreat but you have to make it to a safe place or your ship in order to repair the suit and recuperate. This would cause the below “trust” system to have an impact also.
What would the game include?
As mentioned above, the game would be linear, but Vader did a lot of stuff that Palpatine never knew about, and this is where the RPG elements would come into play. For example, you could be hunting down a remaining Jedi, and execute orders based on how you want to proceed. Vader is known for his brutality, especially the Owen’s on Tattoine after they’re burnt to death. So I believe the gamers should get to choose if they want to kill, spare, kidnap, etc. The game wouldn’t be for the faint of heart.
A leveling-up system would be a great aspect to have. After all, Palpatine did control aspects of Vader’s suit as he intentionally made it uncomfortable for Vader in order to harness his rage and unleash it on his enemies. It made him stronger with the Dark Side. The more missions and actions you do, the more your level of “trust with Palpatine” increases. As the level increases, you get better options for the suit, better abilities, attacks, and combos.
Despite the game mainly being linear, as with all linear games they don’t have a lot of replayability. So this is where I would add a further element of New Game+. Once you complete the game on the linear, canon path, you get an option to play through again but with unlocked customization options. Such as choosing a different suit, customizing the lightsaber beyond the red saber (more to that on the next point), and more. This would mean players would be more intrigued to play through the game multiple times. The reason why I’d add this in the New Game+ is so that every player experiences the full canon path with the right suit and saber.
I would add an element into the customization prior to the New Game+ element, being able to build the saber to your liking until a certain part of the story where we see Vader properly bleed the kyber crystal and builds his famous saber we all know of today. It’s a difficult part where you’re mentioning customization, and the normal could include all of this as well, but like many games, they prefer you to play through how it happened first before making some crazy adjustments to the story.
Different planets would be a must. There doesn’t need to be hundreds, but over 10 would do, as this would allow hunting Jedi to remain effective and not be boring. I’d also prefer flight combat to be included, as we know Darth Vader was a prolific fighter pilot and was not one to be trifled within the air.
One of the many things people tend to prefer in these types of games is multiple endings, but as this game would be canon, I have to say no on that. We saw how poor The Force Awaken’s endings were and made very little impact on the choices. The story would end the same way, on the Death Star 2 with Palpatine plunging to his death, but dependant on the choices you make throughout would change some conversations and actions from Palpatine.
Is it likely to happen?
Nope. This is a game that will never happen. For some reason, despite Vader being the most popular villain in history, he doesn’t receive the full love he deserves, which is weird. This is a character that needs TV shows, movies, or games to showcase everything that happened between Episodes 3 and 4. We only got snippets during Rogue One, and these were merely a drop in the ocean compared to what actually happened.
So there we have it. What do you think? Does the above game sound good to you or not? Let me know down in the comments below.
I would really love a Darth Vader video game. I loved the way you described it because it was pretty close to my vision of what a really cool Darth Vader game should look like! 🙂
i like the way you think! Darth Vader is such a well written character and he is loved by most fans, the sad thing is the gaming departments rarley listen to the supporters. I if we really wanted a Darth Vader video game we would need to push hard with thousands of fans.