Posted by karjala on 2025-02-28 15:34:17 EST

30th Anniversary Update

 

We can't believe it's been 30 years since the game came out. It is so lovely to see so many fans come back to this amazing game.

Some may have thought that with Jedi Knight's release interest in Dark Forces will wane. But that is not the case because we have lots of exciting updates for you today! 

 

DF-21 has survived full website outage and over the past few years we rebuilt our level database and many assets that we thought were lost, including the elusive original Frogman mission. 

New Missions

 

For the past few months the community has been hard at work on new and remastered community missions. You can check all of them out in our Levels Section

Starting with Matthias von Herrmann has finally released his magnum opus Prelude to Harkov's defection HD !

 

Matthias completed a total overhaul of the map including new textures, models, sound effects, custom enemy logics, music and cinematics. The GOB now clocks at 140 megabytes which is twice the size of the original Dark Forces release! 

 

Just look at the new model of Dash Rendar's Outrider! 

 

 

The outdoor areas have been overhauled with lots of new areas to visit and explore !

 

 

The world is now teaming with NPCs that will interact with you. Nothing like this has been done before.


Hot on the heels of Harkov is Geoff Simpson with his twin missions More Heat Than Light - Pirate Raid  and Enter the Kell Dragon

Pirate Raid has you exploring a facility where Kyle must eliminate the leaders of a ruthless pirate gang.

 

There are lots of outdoor areas with new models  and a fantastic boss fight. 

You will explore underground bars where pirates talk about their exploits!

 

The map has lots of fantastic architecture with an emphasis on fighting in the shadows!

Additionally, Geoffrey has released Enter the Kell Dragon which is a mini side-scrolling adventure in a similar vein to 1990s beat-em-up games. 

Your character will move through various Nar Shaddaa areas and punch out nasty gangsters!

 

The mission has lots of new sprites to make it a unique adventure!

 

 

This will bring a doze of nostalgie to those that enjoy the side-scrolling beat-em-up genre!


Furthermore, Tim Smulders, has finished his multi-level adventure Operation Kyber Crystal .  This campaign contains twelve missions and will certainly test your mettle! 

The campaign has diverse locations such as canyon waterfalls.

 

You will get lost in Coruscant's web of skyscrapers!

You will visit frozen planets with a plethora of imperial personnel to combat!

 

Unique imperial base defenses will test your puzzle-solving skills. 

 

What is a Kyle Katarn adventure without combat in space? 

In addition to the Kyber crystal campaign, Tim has released a secret project he's been working on Sith and Jedi trials. 

These are collection of puzzles one must solve as well as gladiatorial combat against various minions of the Star Wars universe. 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't drop off the platforms ! 

 

 

 

This should be a fun collection of mini levels for the community to overcome !

 

Night Dive Dark Forces Interview

Night Dive studios recently released an interview with Max Waine about the game's remaster development ! Check it out !

 

The Force Engine release 1.15

The force engine released a new version of the engine. In addition to bug fixes and work on the editor the engine now supports custom mod overrides and scripting which will allow for new custom content creation. 

While you download the latest release here, you can read the full list of changes below.

• Numerous bug fixes (everyone)
• Many editor changes @luciusDXL
• ForceScript API work @luciusDXL
• ScriptCall functionality in INF (with editor support) @luciusDXL
• Script state serialization for save games @luciusDXL
• CMake: automatically make system midi optional by @mlauss2
• Update Dear ImGUI to 1.90.9 by @mlauss2
• Use external release metadata XML for Flathub info by @fpiesche
• Replace GLEW with built-in GLAD by @mlauss2
• Fixes for GCC LTO (Link Time Optimizations) by @mlauss2
• Enable item ten by @jerethk
• Adding logging timestamps by @ifeldshteyn
• Ading new input buttons such as HD, screenshot and GIF recording. by @ifeldshteyn
• Mod conf overrides by @ifeldshteyn
• Adding Mouse panning to the PDA by @ifeldshteyn
• Custom logic proposal by @jerethk
• Add mod directory to s_searchPaths when loading from a custom GOB by @jerethk
• Adding open folder button for mods. by @ifeldshteyn
• GIF capture feedback messages by @kevinfoley
• actor.cpp, flyers.cpp, sewer.cpp: replace anim.state magic numbers … by @kevinfoley
• dragon, phaseOne: replace anim.state magic numbers with enum values… by @kevinfoley
• Switch mod conf versioning to 1 by @ifeldshteyn
• Weapon data externalisation by @jerethk
• Fixes for TELEPORTER BASIC by @jerethk
• Make sure we can fly over water sectors. by @ifeldshteyn
• Change to forward slash for paths by @jerethk
• Custom logics fix by @jerethk
• New Dev panel with lighting controls by @kevinfoley
• Fix VUE camera by @jerethk
• Subdirectory related amendments by @jerethk
• Externalise pickups by @jerethk
• Fix custom logics serialisation by @jerethk
• Add svg redraw of app icon following modern icon guidelines by @fpiesche
• Check for FME extension before attempting to load a FME by @jerethk
• Externalise weapons by @jerethk
• Actor code readability amendments by @jerethk
• Fix building on Linux by @sotpapathe
• Fix for fist ammo by @jerethk

 

Dark Forces VR

An enterprising community member Erny was able to port the game to VR. You can check out the video below.

 

You can download the here and join their discord at this link

 

Replays

 

While all of this is going on we are also hard at work on Dark Forces demo replays. You can now record and playback any mission just like in Doom! This will hopefully be deployed in the near future in the next TFE release. 

You are able to playback both base missions and any mods. You can slowdown or fastforward or pause the replay as you go along.

 

You can see your replay's progress as you go along. It would be great for speedruns and walkthroughs! 

 

There is full Linux and Windows Support

Posted by karjala on 2024-12-29 11:44:04 EST

Interview Announcement

 

Yves Borckmans - whose gaming career started with making the first Dark Forces editor and working at Lucasarts on Jedi Knight did an extensive interview with Daniel Albu.

Yves is a DF-21 old-timer who created WDFUSE and made some amazing custom missions. He has many stories to tell and you can listen to them here.

 

 

Thank you to to Dan for taking the time to interview Yves. Please visit his site here --> https://www.danielalbu.com/

Posted by karjala on 2024-10-02 23:17:20 EST

DF-21 Level Updates

We've not been sitting idly these past few months. Since the remaster came out we've modernized and tested the entire Dark Forces mission collection. In total there are over 220 maps and over 95% of them are compatible with the Dark Forces Remaster. You can go to visit the levels Here . As a result of this modernization we've removed the link to the old missions from the site.



We've updated each mission to show compatibility. You can now easily see whether the map is DOS, Remaster or The Force Engine Compatible. (Note: They all should be TFE Compatible).

Heart of the Matter

We're also happy to announce a NEW Dark Forces mission "Heart of the Matter: Imperial Underground Facility" by our very own Geoffrey Simpson. You can download it Here.

It's a gorgeous map as you can see from the screenshots below!

Please play through the mission and rate it in our Discord's  #level-ratings channel, but I can tell you it is a true gem!

Steam Custom Mission Guide

Now that the modernization is complete, we've added a new Steam Guide to train new players on how to run the custom maps.

Dark Forces Briefing Generator

Map Makers know that creating Dark Forces briefings is a pain. Fortunately, we've created a web-based Briefing Generator. 

Just put in your your own values and you'll get your own briefing LFD file in seconds! It will look like this 

Dark Forces Custom Enemy Generator

Bendansie has been working on automating creating of Dark Forces enemies using Blender. You can see the process generating new enemies in the video below.





With the process you can create individual frames quickly.  Take a look at some of this amazing work. 

 

We should be able to add them to the Dark Forces Asset Vault after post-processing. For now here is what it looks like in action. 

 

 

Posted by karjala on 2024-02-28 05:38:57 EST

Welcome back Dark Forces. It's been a long time! 

It's been 29 years since the original game came out and today a new chapter opens with Night Dive's release. We are excited to share our favorite game with new players!

It's been a long time coming and we are happy that Kyle Katarn gets the attention he deserves. 

Please support Night Dive Studios and their hard work by purchasing the game at

1. Steam Store
2. GOG Store
3. XBOX Store
4. Nintendo Store

New Players Look Here

Welcome to all the new players who discovered DF-21 (via Google). We've been around for over 25 years and are the largest Dark Forces community on the net. To get you started...

1. Check here for Custom Missions. We recommend you play through 5 star missions first. Note: Not all missions are compatible with the remaster - we will work on getting them all supported

2. Go to our Discord and we will be happy to answer any of your questions! 

3. Check out our Dark Forces history in the Articles section. 

4. Do you love Star Wars? Do you have experience with web development, UI and are skilled in 2D/3D art? Click here for more information! 

5. Want to make your own missions? Start here for WDFUSE or wait for The Force Engine editor to be fully featured. 

Remaster Livestream! 

At DF-21 we will be doing a livestream of the game and the new features. Come join us at https://www.twitch.tv/df21net at 6:30 PM EST February 28th. 

 

The remaster includes new features we are excited to play through.

• All fourteen original levels, featuring Star Wars™ worlds and capital ships
• Use your ability to jump, duck, and crawl to solve puzzles and defeat enemies
• Your Personal Digital Assistant provides you with in game information such including map, inventory, and mission briefing
• Engaging first-person ground combat featuring ten weapons and twenty types of enemies
• Up to 4K 120FPS visuals
• Advanced 3D rendering enables updated lighting and atmospheric effects
• Modern gamepad support adds a new weapon wheel, and rumble
• Controller Support - vibration and gyro controls
• A variety of power-ups are made available to the player, including health, shields, weapons and ammunition
• For combat, the player may use fists, explosive landmines and thermal detonators, as well as blasters and other ranged weapons
• Includes immersive environmental puzzles and mazes

Posted by karjala on 2023-12-31 16:57:36 EST

Happy New Year from DF-21

 

The staff at DF-21 wish everyone a Happy New Year! We are excited for 2024 that will be filled with more Dark Forces content! 

 

 

3D Preview

We are excited to announce a new DF-21 feature! You can now preview all modern Dark Forces missions in 3D! Simply click the new Preview 3D button that appears on each mission.

 

A new window will open and within a few seconds the level will be loaded. If the GOB has multiple missions they will all be shown on the right hand side. 

Our very own Mazzter worked diligently on this feature for the past few months. You can visit him Here for his other projects. Now we have feature parity with the Massassi Temple - hi Brian =) ! 

 

Historical Magazine Archive

This year we spent a lot of time building a collection of Dark Forces historical articles.

We are now ready to share a new DF-21 site that allows for easy browsing of Reviews, Previews and Cheats going all the way back to 1994! 

Go visit it here --> Magazine Archive

 

We even have a 1995 French Joystick article about the first Dark Forces editor DFUSE by Yves Borckmans . Read it Here !

 

 

The Force Engine Editor

Lucius has been making great progress to the TFE Dark Forces Editor. It is looking fantastic and hopeuflly will soon replace WDFUSE (Which is great news for me - I no longer need to work on it!) =). 

 

We have a 15 minutes preview of the editor. Look how easy it is to make new geometry !

 

 

Dark Forces Remaster Release Date

We now have a date for NightDive's Dark Forces remaster release. It will be shown to the world on February 28th, 2024 which is only two months away! 

There is a dedicated Steam page you can visit Here .