This Is Not The Way…
HIGH Star Wars: Bounty Hunter finally has a PC port, 22 years later!
LOW The live system is still included, despite like a dozen other, more questionable changes?!
WTF When an emulator is better at remastering a game than a professional studio.
Disney might treat the original Star Wars Expanded Universe like a junk drawer these days, but boy howdy do they love to reach in for remasters every now and then. Having already handled most of the usual suspects (though I’m still waiting for a proper console port of Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight!), we’ve seen some solid remasters and re-releases. Sadly, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (2024) is not one of the good ones.
For those too young to know about this mid-’00s actioner, Bounty Hunter is the origin story of a hardened Mandalorian named Jango Fett. The story is set parallel to the events of The Phantom Menace and he’s struggling to make ends meet before being hired by Sith Lords to kill a target. This sets Fett on a collision course with Montross, a disgraced Mandalorian who betrayed their mutual mentor and effectively doomed their whole society. So yeah, pretty typical space Western fare with some mystical Jedi nonsense on the fringes.
What’s great for Star Wars fans here is the attention to detail. The story incorporates lore from the comics, even including a relevant issue for free as an unlockable for beating the game. Jango’s actor from Attack of the Clones reprises his role to great effect, and other stellar actors like Clancy Brown and Lucille Bliss bolster the cast. The events of the tale lead right up to Jango’s recruitment as the template of the clone army of the Galactic Republic. It’s not the most profound adventure, but that’s not the point — it’s here to be a charming tie-in story for those who wanted more out of Attack of the Clones’ revelations about the Fett family.
So, about the game itself.
The original Star Wars Bounty Hunter was a linear third-person action-adventure with 3D platforming and more shootouts than a Mandalorian can shake a blaster at. While the option to manually aim is there, it’s best to rely on its lock-on system to aim both pistols while diving into the fray. In terms of movement, Fett traverses the environment by climbing and boosting across gaps horizontally and vertically with his jetpack. That said — and it can’t be overstated — the parkour and traversal elements do not hold the player’s hand, and seeing Fett fall to his death sometimes is pretty much inevitable. Initial levels are more forgiving about this, but past the halfway mark, the player will encounter some areas that are sure to test one’s patience.
Fett’s health also doesn’t regenerate, so players must rely on enemies dropping healing bacta tanks, or finding extra health packs hidden around levels. While his pistols never run dry, much of Fett’s arsenal has limited uses, requiring tactful planning. This isn’t a modern titles where the slightest player error is compensated for — try something dumb, and odds are good Fett will end up dead. Also, if players are intending to 100% the campaign, they have to take the time to manually scan every NPC in line of sight (with an otherwise useless-scanner gadget) to see if they might be an optional bounty to collect – a tricky feat in combat-laden latter stages.
Despite all of the areas that might grate on a player, it offers a unique blend of action-adventure gameplay that’s still novel. The closest spiritual successor I can think of would be WET from back in 2009, which also had cinematic flair and a dual-pistol wielding protagonist. Considering that there aren’t many games occupying the same space, the prospect of a new version with “improvements” was exciting — yet after playing, I’m not sure what Aspyr thinks “improvement” means.
Take, for instance, how equipment-swapping no longer pauses play, so in every instance of needing a specific weapon or gadget, I have to hurriedly cycle through everything with the Q&E keys or my mouse wheel while under fire — not ideal when Fett will have a dozen-ish items to shuffle through in the late game.
More egregious is how the aiming and shooting are… changed. Understand, Bounty Hunter is meant to be played with lock-on targeting. Everything is built around this. Manual aiming is exclusively used for sniping, long distance shots, and manually guiding Fett’s rockets into some poor fool’s face. But now? The emphasis is now on manually aiming all the damn time.
Those who haven’t played Bounty Hunter might wonder why this is such a big deal. Surely it can’t be that different! No, it actually pretty much snaps the combat balance like Darth Vader manhandling the neck of an Imperial officer.
When playing in lock-on, Fett can dodge roll, leap and do cool moves to avoid getting shot. When manually aiming, players can expect to taking far more damage, and it was already tough to begin with. Adding insult to injury, the lock-on system did not get the same dev time that manual did, as it kept freaking out on me, zipping 180 degrees back and forth to find a target when enemies were standing right in front of me.
Bizarrely, the anachronistic ‘lives’ system is still here, though ripping it out could’ve been a truly beneficial gameplay change. The player gets five lives with no way to earn more, and in 2024 there’s no excuse for keeping it while Aspyr was making alterations to other systems. No one would’ve blinked an eye if it mysteriously vanished.
Despite all of this, I could still stomach the frustrations if Bounty Hunter wasn’t more prone to breaking than the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive. I encountered so many weird animation and camera bugs that any chance of immersion was soundly shattered. it’s all quite rough, from NPCs T-posing in cutscenes to seeing how absurdly easy it is to ghost the camera through the environment.
Not helping matters, the new lighting and rendering techniques are often distracting while they introduce new graphical glitches, with weird Z-fighting (two textures conflicting to be rendered in the same space) that stuck out every now and then. When navigating vents, sometimes the collision detection would jam the camera inside Jango’s body, making it impossible to tell whether I was moving forward or back. At one point, manually aiming my gun broke Jango’s neck mid-animation, and the list goes on…
There was a chance for something great, here. Bounty Hunter is one of those titles that’s been absolutely deserving of a once-over to really make it shine. The stages are incredibly varied, the mixture of blazing guns and bombastic jet-powered parkour is oddly rare in Star Wars gaming, and it boasts a great pulpy story.
Should people play Star Wars: Bounty Hunter? Definitely. It’s an acquired taste, but I still enjoy its high points. But should anyone play it via this remastered edition? Goodness, no. Considering how long fans have waited for this title to get a next-gen boost, there’s no excuse to release it in this state.
Final Score: 4 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by Aspyr and published by Lucasfilm Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, XBO/X/S and Switch. This copy was provided via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Six hours were dedicated to the single-player campaign, and it was not completed.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T for Violence. It’s a Star Wars game, so nothing will get too intense but there are drug use references, and Fett is portrayed in a distinctly antihero manner given how casually he’ll kill anyone in his way. The player can even open fire on civilians! Honestly, it’s a bit weird how light the ESRB went. This is definitely something for teenagers and up, not the little ones.
Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game features subtitles and otherwise relies almost entirely on visual prompts for how to proceed. There are no audio cues needed for gameplay. This title is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: No, the controls are not remappable, not even keyboard and mouse. The cheat console also requires navigating it like the player has a controller, which may be briefly discomforting to players used to being able to type directly with their keyboard.
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