Taking a Look Back at the First Star Wars Game, 40 Years Later

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As a franchise, Star Wars is constantly evolving. Regardless of how some people view the post-Disney wave of Star Wars content, there's no denying that the series has continued to try to push boundaries in certain aspects, whether it's in comic book, novel, TV show, or video game form. Over the last four decades or so, Star Wars video games have tried to evolve with the times, and although not all have managed it successfully, each one lays the foundation for the next.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, the first Star Wars game ever released, turns 40 years old this year. Despite how rudimentary the graphics and gameplay are, without it, there wouldn't be the current catalog of over 100 Star Wars games. It may be incomparable to modern titles like Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, but 1982's Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is certainly worth revisiting all these years later.

Star Wars Could Use a Hogwarts Legacy of Its Own

Releasing for the Atari 2600, and then for the Intellivision a year later, 1982's Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back boils one of the most iconic Star Wars set pieces down to a bite-sized 8-bit side-scroller. The player's objective is incredible simple, pilot a Snowspeeder to the left of the screen, and destroy as many AT-ATs as possible.

In the Atari 2600 version of the game, each AT-AT takes a whopping 48 shots to defeat, changing color with each hit to indicate how much damage it's taken. The more AT-ATs are destroyed, the higher the player's score is. As the game continues, more walkers will start to appear on the left side of the screen, increasing their pace and their firepower. If the player loses their five lives, or if the walkers reach Echo Base on the far right side