History of Video Game Lightsabers | MojoPlays

“Star Wars” has no shortage of iconic imagery, from the ships to the planets to the villains. But one thing has always stood out as the quintessential “Star Wars” item: the lightsaber. The all-powerful laser swords that only Force-sensitive individuals can wield have been legendary since the 70s, but since they’re pretty much impossible to create in the real world, video games have long been the best way to emulate what you see in the movies. Despite their status, lightsabers didn’t actually show up until there had already been a few other “Star Wars” games centered on the outer space dogfights. The first time we saw a lightsaber rendered in a video game was “Jedi Arena” in 1983, and it was disappointing, to say the least. “Jedi Arena” was marketed as an intense fighting game, but actually features two completely static Jedi trying to hit a ball around with their lightsabers. It was basically a rip-off of “Pong” and it wasn’t as successful as other “Star Wars” games of the era. Lightsabers weren’t attempted again until the 1987 “Star Wars” released in Japan only on the Famicom, and it was a few more years until it would reach America – not until the NES title in 1991, eight years after “Jedi Arena”. Despite taking a few story liberties, and giving Luke an orange lightsaber for some reason, it was the first chance players got to really use a lightsaber in combat. It set a precedent for LucasArts’ “Super Star Wars” trilogy, which by far had the best lightsaber effects to date. It had motion blur and animation, it glowed brightly, it was powerful, and it made all the right noises. But “Super Star Wars” was still a side-scrolling action-platformer; it wasn’t until games started to become 3D that the lightsaber truly began to evolve as a video game weapon, in a variety of different ways. While there was 3D lightsaber combat in the 1990s with games like the 1999 “Phantom Menace” tie-in, it wasn’t until “Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast” and “Jedi Academy” that we experienced how powerful lightsabers could really be. These games revolutionized lightsaber combat, after the prequel trilogy showed us just how flashy lightsaber fights could be. There was a robust combat engine favoring lightsaber-on-lightsaber duels, rather than lightsabers used to mow down countless droids, and these games are some of the few who don’t shy away from the blade’s power. Too often, video game lightsabers are more like shiny clubs than actual, burning hot swords, but “Jedi Knight” had something other games didn’t: dismemberment. Lightsabers are supposed to be able to cut through flesh like a hot knife through butter, and they rarely do this – the only time they came close was in “Jedi Knights”, which is just one of the many reasons it stands out. Even in “The Force Unleashed”, most of Starkiller’s time was occupied killing endless waves of droids and stormtroopers, with lightsaber battles few and far between. 2019’s “Jedi: Fallen Order” plans to revitalize lightsaber fighting with a combat engine supposedly very similar to “Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice”; if Respawn live up to this claim, then the game should certainly stand out. It’s not all about how the lightsaber plays, though; how it looks is also hugely important. Ever since we saw Luke build his own lightsaber from scratch and found out they came in many more colors than just blue and red, people have been dreaming about having their very own, customized lightsaber. Again, “Jedi Academy” took the lead on this, offering players the first ever chance to create their own lightsaber. But it was “Knights of the Old Republic” that made this concept great, giving players the opportunity to create their own unique Sith or Jedi, complete with personalized lightsaber. “The Force Unleashed” played with this a little through collectable kyber crystals that changed the color of Starkiller’s saber, but customizable lightsabers have seen a big lapse. They’re completely vacant from the DICE’s “Battlefront” games where existing characters are favored. While in “Jedi: Fallen Order’s” demo footage we only see Cal with a basic, blue lightsaber. Apparently players will be able to customize it, bringing back this popular feature. Even when we can’t customize them, we still want our lightsabers to be flashy. It’s hard to get the sound of a lightsaber wrong, but how they appear is a little bit trickier. The first ever video game, and in fact the first ever piece of “Star Wars” media, to actually show the lightsaber emitting a colored glow was “Obi Wan” in 2001. In the movies, we didn’t see this at all until the sequels, except in the duel between Yoda and Count Dooku – because most of the lightsaber visuals are added in post, they don’t emit a colored glow onto the actors or the set. Games often follow this same trend, limiting the environmental influence of the lightsaber, and very few seek to change this. “Jedi Knights”, however, featured the lightsabers being used as an actual source of light in dark areas, a trend which “Jedi: Fallen Order” continues, as we see Cal use his to light the way to the Imperial Refinery. Lighting has come a long way in video games in the last decade, and having the lightsaber actually glow makes it feel like a physical object. It does have “light” in the name, after all. We do see lightsabers outside of “Star Wars”, however, usually existing as tongue-in-cheek references to the franchise. They’ve shown up as the Beam Katana in “No More Heroes” and as the Laser Sword in “Dead Rising 2”, both of which – being far more violent – are able to show their weapons slicing clean through enemies. “Beat Saber” is one of the few VR games that’s actually popular, with footage from it often going viral. Being able to brandish a lightsaber with your hands is incredibly cool, and hopefully paves the way for more immersive, VR lightsaber battles in the future. Hopefully one day a video game will be able to bring us the super-powerful, movie-like lightsaber of our dreams – though a few have come close already.