Have you ever played any unpopular games? Well, this Star Wars game is rising in popularity every day. Like many others for the time, this game was an instant hit in the RTS gaming community. Although “Empire at War” may have had a good start, it didn’t take long for players to realize the flaws.
“Star Wars: Empire at War” came out on Feb. 16, 2006, to show people that a Star Wars RTS game is possible, and that it could be fun. With the initial release of the game, Star Wars fans rushed to get their hands on it.
Little did they know, this game was not what they thought it would be.
It is a space and ground battle multiplayer, and is a real-time strategy game where each player starts with a space station or ground base, depending on what mode they choose. Maps can hold up to three different bases during a game, leaving any other players to share a base with a random player. One of the best aspects of the game is the ship-to-ship combat during space battles. Larger ships have key hard points spread across them. Destroying hard points is what harms the ships.
Every unit in “Empire at War” has a completely different skill set giving each player a variety of strategies and ship combinations to use during battles.
During the game, every player has to battle over different money-making asteroids and buildings spread across the map. The more they have, the more income they get. Players win by destroying every other space station or base on the map.
Players hoped for a fast-paced multiplayer RTS game with all references, ships, and characters from Star Wars. They instead got a game with a very obvious lack of heroes and ships, with some of the slowest RTS gameplay out there.
This game was a completely new genre of RTS. The game also has, to this day, some of the worst multiplayer compatibility, only being able to play up to three players at once without sharing a base.
My Review:
Before I got the game, I was practically jumping out of my seat wondering what the game would have in store for me. Having now owned the game for five years, I can happily say that I enjoy it very much and it’s up there as one of my top played games.
Sadly, I can only say this today because of the game’s modding community. Sure, the game’s DLC (Forces of Corruption) helped, adding a few new ships and heroes, but the community was already gone when it came out.
On the other hand, a small group of gamers (the Empire at War Expanded team and Corey Loses) played and realized the flaws of the game. The team set out to make the game better with mods. On Apr. 2, 2024, they introduced “Thrawn’s Revenge”, an Empire at War Expanded mod. It was clear to gamers that this team was not a joke.
Corey and his team didn’t just change some of the game’s mechanics, they changed the whole game. With the eight new factions and more than 300+ ships, the battles were going to be legendary. Multiplayer was better than ever with much larger, up-to-date, maps that could hold up to eight players. This mod brought all the content from Star Wars into the game.
One of the main reasons why the mod became so popular was because of the new list of heroes. They even added heroes and ships from Star Wars comic books. But the most impressive of all was that they completely reworked the combat system, making the game way more balanced.
If you haven’t already, this is worth trying. Even though it has some flaws, don’t let that take you away from this amazing game. If you’re up for a challenge or just want to add more content, try playing the Empire at War’s Thrawn’s Revenge mod on Steam.
