Back in the day, there were dozens of Star Wars games to play. Lately, it feels like there’s been a dirge of titles for the IP, with fans left wanting more.
Thankfully, with the power of these amazing mods, you can transform non-Star Wars games into games that every franchise fan wishes we could’ve had.
Related
Modding PC Games Has Never Been Easier, Here’s How to Do It
Time to turn your Skyrim adventure into a meme-filled playground.
The infamous XCOM 2 is a game with a healthy modding scene. There’s an extremely active community despite the game’s age (this probably has something to do with the lack of an XCOM 3). Needless to say, there are a ton of Star Wars mods for the game as well, to the extent that you can almost completely transform it into a Star Wars experience.
You can convert all of your enemies to a Star Wars faction, change all weapons to appropriate blasters, download voice lines matching battle droids, clones, or stormtroopers, unlock a whole Jedi class, and much more.
There’s really no one specific mod to point out here. Unfortunately, you’ll have to do a bit of digging to find all the mods you want for your particular game. But you’re spoiled for choice, and if you want the ordeal to be a little easier, you can always look for something like the XCOM 2 Star Wars Total Conversion Collection, which is just a big collection of compatible mods for you to consider.
I personally love to turn my XCOM soldiers into Delta Squad from Republic Commando, complete with voice lines ripped from the game. Watching them tear through all sorts of battle droids on clandestine missions creates a unique Star Wars experience fans have never gotten from an official game, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You can also mod in Star Wars music and even convert the Lost into infected Death Troopers.
At any rate, if you’ve always wanted a Star Wars turn-based strategy game focusing on squad tactics and strategy, converting XCOM 2 into that experience is the way to go for now, because it’ll probably still be a while before we get that new official Star Wars game from Respawn Entertainment.
4
Squad: Galactic Contention
Do you love milsim games? Do you wish Star Wars Battlefront was a bit grittier and more realistic? Well, the odds of us getting an official milsim Star Wars title is pretty low, but thankfully, some mods have made the experience a reality anyway.
In particular, the mod Galactic Contention for Squad creates, arguably, the most realistic Star Wars combat experience available. If you aren’t familiar with Squad, it’s a lot like ARMA in the sense that it’s a super-realistic combined arms warfare game. Galactic Contention completely transforms the game into a massive-scale Star Wars battlefield, with enough chaos to match the big movie battles we all know and love.
Dropships carry players around the battlefield while strafing the enemy and taking AA fire. A team of fifty players may die holding a hill or advancing through a barrage of blaster fire to take one. Specialized tools are needed to take on armored vehicles, and unique classes play special roles in supporting victory for the team, while commanders and squad leaders try to direct everyone on the radio as they pore over detailed maps.
What separates this type of experience from most casual, arcade-style shooters is the fact that getting shot is much deadlier. It’s not uncommon to get killed by a single blaster bolt, and if you do survive it, you’ll probably be seriously injured and find yourself tending to your wounds on the ground.
That kind of lethality is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it certainly adds a touch of realism and exciting tension to the experience that you just can’t get with any official Star Wars titles right now. While I love the official Battlefront games, I have to admit that Galactic Contention for Squad is the closest I’ve ever felt to being in a real Star Wars battle.
3
Men at War: Assault Squad 2 Galaxy at War
Star Wars has had RTS games before, such as Empire at War, a title I’m quite fond of myself. But the options have always been a little limited, and EAW itself is quite old. Admittedly, Men at War: Assault Squad 2 is also pretty old, but with the right mods, it can serve as an excellent ground-combat Star Wars RTS that’s even more realistic than Empire at War, similar to games like Sudden Strike or Company of Heroes.
This game is kind of like playing a milsim from an RTS point of view. You command entire armies of soldiers and vehicles, with the ability to get as specific as commanding one individual trooper among thousands if you so wish.
Threats to your troopers are pretty realistic in this game—direct hits from enemy fire and nearby explosions are extremely deadly. Your infantry will get chewed up outside of cover, and even the toughest vehicle might get taken down by an anti-tank attack to a weak spot if you aren’t careful.
This is true even without converting the game to a Star Wars experience, but slapping a Star Wars skin over those mechanics with the Galaxy at War mod makes for an experience that the IP just hasn’t offered in an official game. It’s like being able to command the biggest, most impressive movie battles from a bird’s eye view, complete with the chaos of thousands of troops, a veritable storm of blaster fire, and explosions galore.
The only downside is that it might fry your computer if you really want to go all out and make the biggest conflict possible in skirmish mode. With the ability to create your own massive battles, even the most powerful computers can be overwhelmed.
Related
8 Classic Star Wars Games Every Fan Should Play At Least Once
Enjoy these games, you will.
2
Stellaris: Star Wars New Dawn
There are lots of Star Wars mods out there for Stellaris, and I can’t hope to list them all. Instead, I’ll focus on a singular total conversion mod called Star Wars: New Dawn. It overhauls the entire Stellaris experience, not only aesthetically changing the game to match the Star Wars universe, but also adding new mechanics such as story events, crisis chains, ship types, species, and a lot more.
New Dawn specifically sets the stage right after Revenge of the Sith, following the rise of the Galactic Empire in those years between it and A New Hope. You can play as a variety of factions from the time period, engaging with new features like Hutt cartels, Mandalorian clans, uncovering technology from ancient civilizations, and institutions, as well as a ship retirement system.
New Dawn even has some features that work together with official Stellaris DLC—for example, if you have the Apocalypse DLC, you can gain access to the Death Star, and the Nemesis DLC will allow Hutts and Mandalorians to engage in unique covert espionage operations. Though these features are added if you have the DLC, you don’t actually need any DLC to play the New Dawn mod.
Star Wars has never really had a 4X strategy game with the level of complexity that Stellaris offers, making this total conversion mod a great way to get that experience if you’ve always felt the IP wasn’t delivering. Empire at War is the closest Star Wars ever got to that type of game, but even it was pretty simple in comparison to most 4X strategy titles. Just bear in mind that you may have to rollback your game to a version that is compatible with the mod.
1
X4: Foundations
X4: Foundations is a space combat and trading game, quite similar to Elite Dangerous, though X4 is more of a sandbox experience. It’s one of those living, actively evolving worlds with thousands of ships, space stations, pilots, and encounters. It’s really more accurate to call it a simulator, one in which the player can live out their space dreams—anything from being an ace fighter pilot to commanding a giant battleship or running an empire.
You can basically do anything you want in this simulated galaxy, fighting, building, trading, and exploring as you seamlessly transition from cockpits to space stations and carrier decks. Now, wouldn’t it be pretty awesome if we could get that kind of sandbox experience for Star Wars? To be able to pilot almost any ship, to act as an expert starfighter pilot or an experienced smuggler, or even the commander of a Star Destroyer in a constantly changing universe?
Yeah, of course it would be cool. Thankfully, the mod Star Wars Interworlds transforms X4 into exactly that Star Wars experience. It’s kind of like the sandbox experience Star Wars Galaxies was, but with more focus on space. Getting to live out your Star Wars fantasy life in this simulation is incredible—it’s the only time you’ll get to take direct control of a Star Destroyer and unleash your horde of TIEs on the enemy, and not in an RTS sense. You really are the commander of the singular vessel.
And it’s not like this mod just slaps a bunch of Star Wars ships into the X4 universe. Appropriate locations are added as well, and there are lots of submods compatible with Interworlds to make the experience even more robust, adding narrative events, jobs, more factions, points of interest, and much more. All in all, Interworlds for X4 is one of the most complete Star Wars experiences in terms of space exploration and combat.
The only downside is the fact that Interworlds requires all of the X4: Foundations DLC to work, so if you’re interested in this experience, you’ll need to drop a whole lot of money if you don’t get all of it on sale. But for the price you pay, X4: Foundations will give you thousands of hours of playtime, and that’s even without any total conversion mods.
These are just a few amazing games that can be converted into an incredible Star Wars experience with the right mods. There are far more out there, and even these games alone may have multiple Star Wars mods you could use them with. Hopefully, we can get some official Star Wars titles offering these experiences in the future, but for now, these games and their associated mods stand tall as some of the best Star Wars experiences in gaming.
Related
6 Star Wars Games That Are Worth Replaying With Mods
These mods give old classics new life.
