'Star Wars: Dark Forces' is 30 years old, and it remains an essential fragment of Star Wars and gaming history

《星球大战：黑暗力量》已有30年历史，但时至今日，它依然是星战历史及游戏发展史上不可或缺的重要组成部分。

If the name Kyle Katarn rings a bell, you've probably been into Star Wars for a very long time. First introduced in the first-person shooter video game Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995), he became one of the biggest heroes of the old Star Wars Legends continuity. Now, 30 years later, his original adventure can still teach casual players and diehards of Star Wars games many lessons.

如果你对凯尔·卡塔恩这个名字很耳熟，那你肯定是《星球大战》的资深粉丝了。他最早出现在 1995 年的《星球大战：黑暗力量》这款第一人称射击游戏中，后来成为了旧的《星球大战》传说宇宙中最大的英雄之一。如今 30 年过去了，他的初次冒险仍然能给《星球大战》游戏的普通玩家和铁杆粉丝带来许多启发。

By and large, Dark Forces was considered a 'Doom clone' when it first came out due to its 2.5D perspective (cutting edge at the time) and the accompanying sprite and level design work. To this day, that remains a pretty logical way of describing it, key differences aside. For example, LucasArts' Jedi Game Engine brought a number of big innovations to the table that greatly affected the level design. However, the basic mechanics and overall gameplay loop remained remarkably similar to those of other contemporary shooters.

总体而言，《黑暗力量》刚推出时因其 2.5D 视角（当时处于前沿水平）以及相关的精灵和关卡设计，被视作《毁灭战士》的仿制品。直到今天，这依然是描述它的合理方式，尽管它有一些关键的不同之处。例如，卢卡斯影业的绝地游戏引擎在关卡设计方面带来了很多重大创新。然而，其基本机制和整体游戏循环与当时其他射击游戏惊人地相似。

Last year, Nightdive Studios resurrected the game – which was readily available on PC anyway – with a pretty fantastic Star Wars: Dark Forces remaster not only for PC, but consoles as well. So, there are no good excuses not to check this one out, especially if you love blasting away stormtroopers and the idea of accidentally blowing yourself up with a thermal detonator.

去年，Nightdive Studios推出了一款非常精彩的游戏——《星球大战：黑暗力量》的重制版，这款游戏不仅适用于PC，也适用于游戏机。所以，现在可没啥不玩它的理由了，尤其是如果你喜欢打冲锋队员，或者觉得用热能炸弹炸到自己这种超有趣的事的话。

Spoiler warning: This article contains spoilers for The Mandalorian season 2.

剧透警告：本文包含曼达洛人第二季的剧透。

Star Wars: Dark Forces is commonly referred to as "the game in which you steal the Death Star plans." But wait, didn't a ragtag team of Rebels do that in the live-action spinoff movie Rogue One? Well, this was way before the (admittedly messy) canon was rebooted beyond the movies and the 3D Clone Wars Star Wars TV series. Back then, lingering questions were simply answered with video games, comic books, or novels. It's widely known that George Lucas never paid much attention to all those stories though.

《星球大战：黑暗力量》常被称为“偷取死星计划的游戏”。但等一下，在真人衍生电影《星球大战外传：侠盗一号》中，不是有一群杂牌反抗军做了这件事吗？不过，这可是在（坦白说有些混乱的）正史被重启之前的事，当时正史还只包括电影和《克隆人战争》3D 动画剧。那时候，对于那些未解之谜，直接用电子游戏、漫画或小说来解答就行了。不过，众所周知，乔治・卢卡斯其实对这些故事并不怎么上心。

So, Dark Forces doesn't really hold much weight nowadays on the narrative front. Who cares though? Canons are as made-up as the stories that are part of them, so Dark Forces still has value as part of an old continuity that remains fun and quite wacky at times. It's just a different flavor of Star Wars, and LucasArts' FPS classic was much more than a quick trip to an Imperial base with poor security. After delivering the Death Star plans, Kyle Katarn stumbles upon a far larger threat: the Dark Trooper Project. That's when the real journey begins.

所以，《黑暗力量》如今在叙事方面已不太重要。谁在意呢？正史和其中的故事一样，都是人为设定的。《黑暗力量》作为旧连续性的组成部分，依然具有价值，它充满乐趣，有时还很有趣。它只是另一种风格的《星球大战》，而卢卡斯影业的这款经典射击游戏远不止是一次对帝国基地安保漏洞的快速突袭。在递送死星图纸后，凯尔·卡塔恩偶然发现了一个更大的威胁：黑暗士兵计划。这才是他真正冒险的开始。

Throughout 14 levels, Dark Forces is unpredictable and offers more variety than many of its FPS contemporaries: New enemies pop up in almost every mission; the locations directly influence the Jedi Engine-powered level layouts; and there's a genuine effort to actually tell a cohesive story that was rare to see in the genre back in the day. Newbies might find it too old and hard to digest (though it's a breezy experience), but most Star Wars fans should have plenty to chew on.

《黑暗力量》共有 14 个关卡，内容难以预测，比同时期的许多第一人称射击游戏更具多样性：几乎每个任务都会出现新敌人；地点直接影响绝地引擎驱动的关卡布局；并且它真正努力讲述一个在当时该类型游戏中很少见的连贯故事。新手可能会觉得它太老，难以接受（尽管玩起来很轻松），但大多数《星球大战》粉丝应该有很多值得品味的地方。

With an average length of around eight hours (if you don't get stuck on a puzzle or hard-to-navigate level), Dark Forces doesn't ask for too much of your time. In return, you get to experience one of the most influential Star Wars stories of all time and learn about Kyle Katarn's pre-Jedi Knight antics.

《黑暗力量》平均时长约八小时（如果你没有被某个谜题或难以通过的关卡卡住的话），不会占用你太多时间。作为回报，你可以体验到《星球大战》历史上最具影响力的故事之一，并了解凯尔·卡坦成为绝地骑士之前的种种事迹。

As stated before, Doom's DNA was all over this game. Back in the 1990s, the 'gaming arms race' moved extremely fast. In 1992, everyone who didn't hate video games was blown away by Wolfenstein 3D. Less than a decade later, the original Half-Life looked (and behaved) totally different and presented highly complex 3D levels to explore with much more advanced enemy AI and animations.

如之前所说，《毁灭战士》的风格深深影响了这款游戏。在上世纪90年代，游戏行业的发展速度极快。1992年，几乎所有不讨厌电子游戏的人都被《德军总部3D》震撼到了。然而，不到十年后，《半条命》初代的画质和玩法已经完全不同，它为玩家呈现了复杂的3D关卡，拥有更高级的人工智能和动画效果。

In the six or so years between those two launches, the FPS genre underwent changes at a relentless pace, and Star Wars: Dark Forces played a key role in the transition from a rigid 2.5D model to what we've widely accepted as first-person shooters since the late '90s. It was a new frontier, and LucasArts' developers were at the center of innovation. There are plenty of good reasons why fans worked on refreshing Dark Forces and its Jedi Engine with The Force Engine long before Nightdive Studios' remaster. This game's importance extends beyond the confines of the galaxy far, far away.

在那两款游戏发布的六年左右时间里，第一人称射击（FPS）游戏类型以 relentless（ relentless）的速度发展变化着，而《星球大战：黑暗力量》在从僵化的2.5D模式向我们自90年代末以来广泛接受的第一人称射击游戏的转变过程中扮演了关键角色。当时那是一个全新的领域，而卢卡斯艺术的开发者们正处于创新的中心。早在Nightdive Studios推出重制版之前，粉丝们就有很多充分的理由去用The Force Engine更新《黑暗力量》及其绝地引擎。这款游戏的重要性早已超越了“遥远的银河系”的范围。

Now, in 2025, does this all translate into an enjoyable experience? I'd say so. Then again, my childhood was tied to the rise of the FPS genre and video games for home consoles and desktop PCs. Dark Forces, especially in its remastered form, is a smoother (albeit not as expertly designed) experience than the first two Doom games, so anyone who enjoys those shouldn't skip this one. As for veterans scared of being let down by a game they haven't revisited in ages, chances are it'll play better and look more stylish than a good chunk of the beloved 3D Star Wars video games released in the early 2000s. There was something magical about these 2.5D shooters, and quick modern fix-ups have taken care of most of the rough edges.

现在到了2025年，这一切是否能转化为一种愉快的体验呢？我认为是的。不过，我的童年正值第一人称射击游戏以及家用游戏机和台式电脑游戏崛起的时代。《黑暗力量》，尤其是其重制版，比最初的两款《毁灭战士》游戏更流畅（尽管设计上不如有前者那么精巧），因此任何喜欢那些游戏的人都不应错过这一款。至于那些担心被一款多年未玩的游戏所失望的老玩家，很可能它玩起来会更顺畅，看起来也比2000年代初许多深爱的3D《星球大战》电子游戏更时尚。2.5D射击游戏有其独特的魔力，而快速的现代修复已经处理掉了大部分粗糙的边缘。

The fact we find ourselves circling back to Dark Forces three decades later is enough proof of its importance on two levels: for the gaming industry and for the Star Wars universe that's been in conversation with itself for a long time. While it was eclipsed by its 3D sequels (Dark Forces 2 did something a bit weird and spawned the Jedi Knight series) in the gaming arena, Kyle Katarn's first adventure is one of the most fascinating Star Wars video games to dissect and study in relation to other pieces of media.

时隔三十载，我们依然在回看《黑暗力量》，这足以证明它在两个层面的重要性：对游戏行业而言，它是推动发展的关键之作；对星战宇宙来说，它是这一虚构世界自我延续、自我对话的重要组成部分。虽然在游戏领域，它后来被它的3D续作比下去了（《黑暗力量2》走了一条有点奇怪的路，还衍生出了《绝地骑士》系列），但凯尔·卡坦的初次冒险依然是最值得剖析和研究的《星球大战》电子游戏之一，尤其是将其与其他媒体作品联系起来时。

The Force Awakens' Finn going from stormtrooper to Force-sensitive good guy? Kyle already did that. The suicide mission to recover the Death Star plans? Been there, done that. A shadowy Imp project to develop fearsome super soldiers? Jon Favreau borrowed it from Dark Forces. Much of the 'modern Star Wars' you know and love can be traced back to this scrawny FPS. It was no Knights of the Old Republic, but sometimes less is more.

芬恩在《原力觉醒》中从冲锋队员到原力敏感的好人的转变？凯尔早就这么干过。为了窃取死星计划而进行的自杀式任务？《黑暗力量》早就这么演过。一个神秘的帝国项目开发可怕的超级士兵？乔恩·费儒就是从《黑暗力量》借鉴的这个点子。你所熟知和喜爱的许多“现代星球大战”元素都可以追溯到这个瘦弱的第一人称射击游戏。它虽不及《旧共和国武士》，但有时候，少即是多。

The Mandalorian and his pals needed Luke Skywalker and his lightsaber to save the day when Moff Gideon's dark troopers were activated in The Mandalorian's season 2 finale. Good ol' Kyle's solution? Shooting at them more and harder. Mind you, the original dark troopers were still plenty scary, which half-explains why their iconic design stuck around for too long and was barely altered for their huge live-action debut.

在《曼达洛人》第二季的结局中，当莫夫·吉迪恩的黑暗士兵被激活时，曼达洛人和他的伙伴们需要卢克·天行者和他的光剑来拯救局面。而老凯尔的解决方案是什么呢？就是更猛烈、更密集地向他们开火。你要知道，原始的黑暗士兵本身就已经够吓人的了，这也从侧面解释了为什么他们那标志性的设计一直沿用，几乎没有改动，甚至在他们首次登上真人秀时也是如此。

Trips down memory lane, especially when Star Wars video games are involved, can be deceiving. Maybe Dark Forces was a hit back then because of the IP it was built on top of. Maybe it wasn't that revolutionary. Well, I don't think that's the case after doing my research inside and outside the franchise, but I'll admit I'm biased. What say you?

当涉及到《星球大战》电子游戏的怀旧之旅时，人们可能会被记忆所欺骗。也许《黑暗力量》当时之所以受欢迎，是因为它依托了《星球大战》这个大IP。也许它并没有那么具有革命性。然而，在对游戏行业内外进行了研究之后，我不这么认为，但我也承认自己可能存在偏见。那么，你怎么看呢？

Star Wars: Dark Forces and its remaster are currently available to purchase on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.

《星球大战：黑暗力量》及其重制版目前可在PC、PlayStation、Xbox和Nintendo Switch平台上购买。