Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith is many things. It’s the only Star Wars game to star fan favorite Expanded Universe character Mara Jade, would end up being the last Jedi Knight game made by LucasArts, and is packed full of experimental level design. Whether exploring how Immersive Sim mechanics could work in a more traditional shooter or item puzzles straight out of LucasArts’ finest adventure titles, Mysteries of the Sith pushes its arena shooter sensibilities further than you could possibly imagine - well, at least in the 90s.

Yet there’s one power it holds that no one could see coming. Something so powerful it could shake the foundations of the Star Wars saga to its core. It's a time paradox, Snake!

Where the original Jedi Knight just had the bonus that you could team up with Max from Sam & Max: Freelance Police for a level, Mysteries of the Sith lets you shatter the Star Wars continuity forever. Hidden in the expansion is a bonus stage that, by mid-90s FPS standards, faithfully recreates Luke’s arrival on Bespin at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Except, this is a videogame, so who wants to lose to Vader, am I right?

Jedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith Bespin Bonus Level facing Vader in the carbon freezing chamber

Rather than getting your Padawan behind kicked all the way back to Ziost, Mysteries of the Sith lets you turn Luke into the space Rambo he just didn’t realize he could be; skip all that business with Jabba and beat Boba Fett senseless with the might of the Force, leaving him to collapse on the floor in exhaustion; forget getting your hand cut off by Darth Vader - hit him with a railgun and rockets! Slice his cape a good dozen times! The Bespin level isn’t long by any means, with most players easily blazing through it in under twenty minutes.

It’s the sort of content a modern game would package away as a pre-order extra or some DLC. That’s why it’s so lovely to look back on it, because you can tell this was a last-minute labor of love made just for the hell of it. Someone on the team behind this game saw an opportunity, was given the chance, and essentially got to create their own mod level on company dime for Star Wars nerds to have a blast with.

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It’s also oddly a precursor to what became a theme in Star Wars games at the time: what-if scenarios. The Force Unleashed, Empire at War, Galactic Battlegrounds, even the final Jedi Knight game, Jedi Academy, boasted a twist on expectations. Yet out of all the Star Wars games up to its release back in 1997, only Jedi Knight really explored the possibilities, and the main game merely presented the alternate path as the option to become a Dark Jedi, duel one different boss, and rule the galaxy.

You can tell this was a last-minute labor of love made just for the hell of it.

This reimagining of Luke as a total badass is less a rumination on the corrupting power of the Darkside, more of a gleeful romp where you get to mash your favorite action figures together. The included sound clips from the film are a great touch too, with all sorts of little details striving to approximate the original source material.

Now with the fan remaster that vastly improves the graphics and modern performance, it’s never been easier to revisit both classic games. Sadly the digital versions of Mysteries of the Sith oddly lack the Bespin level by default, but a quick hop over to PCGamingWiki can get the missing files sorted.

So if you feel brave enough, you too can see try to break the greatest Star Wars movie and prove that you are in fact a Jedi capable of defeating Vader. Just, uh, nobody tells Luke that he just iced his father without realizing, yeah?

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