The Unexpected History of Star Wars: Empire at War

That sounds very great. I guess I will have to spend some oney.

I remember playing it when it came out. My PC wasn't terrible, but it had some kind of bug that made it impossible to proceed the campaign when too many units where in play, like after 200 turns. Frustration. But that was them, so...

EAW became a part of my childhood since 2008. Until this day, I still play it.

Just last year I learned how to make maps, add units, and more. Modding the game is so fun. Although it’s time consuming, but I like it. I enjoy every second of it.

I will be doing future videos based off the ahsoka series. :D

>makes video about empire at war
>opens with swtor music

Man this brings back good memories. I used to run the popular Empire At War website and often had live developer chats with LucasArts and Petroglyph on MiRC chat system(who remembers that?!) and the folks at Petroglyph became very good friends of mine. They also released Universe at War with Sega which had the dreaded 'Games for Windows Live' tag but it is a superb RTS as well. I know for a fact that Petroglyph would relish making Empire at War 2 or even a remastered version.

recently in an interview, it was said that 2 new star wars RTS's are in development so there is hope for a sequel

Kinda sad since Disney took the franchise the only decent star wars we got was jedi survivor ect. we went from having multiple genre masterpieces to being lucky that we got 1 kinda good game.

Did this guy do the voice overs for How It’s Made??? Literally sounds exactly like him

This game is truly special, many of the mods are essentially entirely new games just using the mods engine, similar to how LoL and Dota are warcraft mods but diverge a lot from the source material. There is nothing quite like this game and it really captures the magic of Star Wars, allowing you to battle huge armies on land and in space. EAW is THE Star Wars rts game. No other game even comes close

One of my favorite Star Wars games, and RTS games of all time. Played the shit out of this as a kid.

This game is consistently one of the most most played star wars games on steam at any given point. It's currently outpacing every star wars game made in the last decade.

the reason this game wont die is because of its community.

Mag was amazing the only game I actually woke up at 3am to play before school thank you for making the video on Mag one day there will be a game like its equal

lol I worked (fqa and lqa) on these games love seeing people still playing them

This game has an almost gross amount of replayability due to the outstanding community and dev support. I love this game.

I love Empire at War very much but I always thought ground combat was just ass. I know people don't like this but I would prefer the space combat to be the same and the ground combat to be exactly like Force Commander except you are not totally relying on cost and can bring in units like normal. Something combined.

This game is amazing, I really hope the studio gets the chance to make a sequel.

Is this even a real channel like why does it exist?

One of the Star wars game ever made👍🏿

Just a note that didnt make it into the video it seems. Prior to the re-enabling of multiplayer and steam workshop support, there were countless years of mods on Moddb that thrive to this day.

One of my favorite games, the space battles were amazing.

Amazing game. The ground battles suck though... they look bad, they play bad. And the fun drops to zero. But in Space Conquest mode, you don't need ground battles. Just turn every planet to stardust!

one of the greatest games in history

One of my absolute favorite Star Wars games. This video brought me so much nostalgia that I'm downloading the game to play again lol.

I can remember it now. It was a summer Saturday in 2010, after begging my mother for months she finally ordered this game for me. I hugged the damn mailman when it got delivered. I've never loved a game as much in my entire 22 years.

I thought this game flopped

Rebellion sure was a weird one. A recent stint with the game convinced me that Rebellion is simultaneously the best and worst Star Wars strategy game. Let me explain.

Yes, the interface was awful, clunky, unintuitive, and probably outdated even for its time. The "RTS" space battles were awful to control and just ugly. Difficulty was weirdly balanced. It deserved all the criticism it got.

But once you figure out how to actually work the interface, and if you're willing to just auto-sim the space battles, there's a uniquely authentic Star Wars experience there. For starters, the heart of Star Wars is really the characters, and Rebellion was far more character focused than EAW. In fact, at least half of what you do in Rebellion is centered on covert missions with characters. Each character had unique stats made them better or worse at certain mission types, though their stats could improve with each success. In this way, it felt like you had a hand in training them up and making them more effective. There were also character events, like Luke being trained as a Jedi or even discovering and training other Force users, and these would often affect their stats as well. The fleets and armies that you built were the other half of your war effort, but even then you could assign characters as admirals, commanders, or generals of those forces.

As the Rebels, you had an HQ that you could move to different planets to stay one step ahead of the Empire. And while the Empire began with much stronger units and better infrastructure, the Rebels had a stronger roster of characters who could covertly even the odds.

There was also a diplomacy system that added yet another layer. It was possible to convert neutral planets to your side through diplomacy missions, or even cause enemy-controlled planets to revolt and join your side.

And I could probably name a few other interesting systems that made it just feel like Star Wars. If you could look past the awful interface and outdated graphics, there was a level of strategic complexity in Rebellion that we haven't seen since. It was simultaneously the worst and best Star Wars strategy game.

I was 20 year's old when this game originally came out. It's still excellent all these years later.

dang did they just completely skip over star wars galactic battlegrounds as an RTS, even though it was just a reskin of Age of Empires? Harsh, its like the world forgetting Generation X exists.

God bless the modders of the world.

Hey i still want that Republic at War game they were planning

This was the first game I ever played on a pc and sunk so much time into it. It's really rare nowdays that such games stay relevant but when you build a solid foundation and provide the tool to your community and they stay alive even after 16years.

Westwood studios. <3 Fugg EA who ruin every franchise and studio.

This is by far one of my favorite games, I still play it today!

I want a sequel now.

Wait, do you mean Petrology supports the game to this very day??

I didn't know that!

This game is just fantastic and addictive, even today.

It has what any great game needs, a strong foundation.

Like any other legend, if it doesn't do what you want, you simply need complement it with a mod.



I remember finding about this games when I got Battle for Middle Earth.

All I could see were screenshots that took time to be loaded by the internet.

They were exactly what I wanted from a Star War game. It was like living a dream.

So beautiful it all was that I was certain the computer would never be able to run it.

I got it many years later after I finally found this game and it was above and beyond.


It also added something missing in RTS - scale.
Being able to see the planet and not just the ground, the whole battle unfolding gave it a scale I'd only come to see later in Total War.

This game rules. I finally picked it up again and played some mods and it was amazing

Great video as always ! Please do a Lord of the Rings Battle for middle series one ! ✌️🙏❤️

What strikes me most is the amount of intentional and player-centric design choices that shaped the making of this game. It seems to me, and this is just perception, that the design of games these days lacks that. They seem more rushed, more profit driven. I get the impression from the designers of this game that they really wanted the best for their players and they had deep respect for the source material.

As someone who plays empire at war all the time they really should make a second one but with all the moders who know the game the best

I've played Rebellion and EAW, but EAW is certainly my favorite over Rebellion. Just feels way more fun.

promosm ?

One of my favorite RTS! I still remember swarming the enemy before they could retreat into hyperspace

Bring back Westwood

Petroglyph is an amazing studio I am afraid they will close soon as the RTzs genre has been in a massive decline for years. Dark times indeed

"Ysalamir cage constructing"

Does no one remember Galactic Battlegrounds? They mention Rebellion and Force Commander but neglect to mention the actual first good Star Wars RTS. Used the Age of Kings engine for gods sake.

I looooooooved Rebellion as a kid!!!!!!