Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy source code released in tribute to LucasArts

While Star Wars games have become increasingly shoddy over the years, they were once consistently pleasing. In memory of the late, great LucasArts, shut down by Disney, Raven has released the source code of two such games from the Jedi Knight series, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. If you missed them in the early noughties, they were the first solid ways to have decent multiplayer lightsaber battles.

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While Star Wars games have become increasingly shoddy over the years, they were once consistently pleasing. In memory of the late, great LucasArts, shut down by Disney, Raven has released the source code of two such games from the Jedi Knight series, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. If you missed them in the early noughties, they were the first solid ways to have decent multiplayer lightsaber battles.

"We loved and appreciated the experience of getting to make Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy for LucasArts," Raven said in a statement provided to Kotaku. "As a gift to the persistently loyal fanbase for our Jedi games and in memory of LucasArts, we are releasing the source code for both games for people to enjoy and play with."

The source code, based upon id Software's Quake III: Team Arena engine, is released under the GNU GPLv2 license for anyone. Given what typically happens when developers release engine source, we can most likely expect to see updated versions with fixes and support for fancy modern graphical effects, at a minimum.

Download the the Jedi Outcast source code here and Jedi Academy's there. Raven does note that it may take some tinkering to get things working with the finished game's assets. Which, by the way, have not been open-sourced, so no, the games are not now free.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 4, 2013 6:45 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy source code released in tribute to LucasArts.

    While Star Wars games have become increasingly shoddy over the years, they were once consistently pleasing. In memory of the late, great LucasArts, shut down by Disney, Raven has released the source code of two such games from the Jedi Knight series, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. If you missed them in the early noughties, they were the first solid ways to have decent multiplayer lightsaber battles.

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      April 4, 2013 7:04 AM

      alright! can't wait to see the incoming mods.

      g_saberRealisticCombat for life.

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        April 4, 2013 7:11 AM

        Decapitating Lando and Jan with an accidental saber throw for the win.

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        April 4, 2013 8:29 AM

        Had a buddy that was in a saber only Jedi knight clan for this game. They knew all the combo moves and practiced them all day.

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          April 4, 2013 8:42 AM

          the backstab

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            April 4, 2013 12:21 PM

            That animation was cool.

            G_saberrealisticcbat 1

            Right??

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            April 4, 2013 3:18 PM

            Haha, wasn't the backstab so powerful that people would engage in what was known as "bum flghts"?

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          April 4, 2013 8:57 AM

          I was in a couple such clans :)

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          April 4, 2013 8:07 PM

          I was in one of these. Wrecked face on a daily basis.

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      April 4, 2013 7:45 AM

      Nude Jabba patch in 3, 2, 1....

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      April 4, 2013 7:46 AM

      Is there any KOTOR source lurking around somewhere?

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        April 4, 2013 8:18 AM

        HA.

        This is cool though, Jedi Outcast still had some of the best third person dueling ever.A small design flaw int he force powers/one hit kills mad mp pretty crap, but playing against people who just like to have a good time was a blast.

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      April 4, 2013 8:38 AM

      I just grabbed Jedi Outcast on Steam so I could play this ladder mod
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I53Dh_28hg again - it's been years since I have.

      I actually found the download link for it:
      http://www.massassi.net/levels/files/1959.shtml

      And I also found the Enyak Multilator mod as well:
      http://jediknight3.filefront.com/file/;2173

      Will be fucking up some jedi tonight!

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        April 4, 2013 9:13 AM

        i want to say there was a way to get dismemberment without needing a mod for it. something like g_saberrealisticcombat or some such console command.

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          April 4, 2013 9:46 AM

          Yeah, was some console command like that. Made the single-player part tough though since brushing up against your NPC companions would accidentally cut them in half

          Runs up to NPC
          "Great, now that you've unlocked the hatch we can-"
          SLICE
          "Aaaaaahhh..."
          GAME OVER

          Shit.

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            April 4, 2013 7:52 PM

            Yeah, it was always best to holster the saber when you were near friendlies.

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          April 4, 2013 9:48 AM

          Oh also, the story goes that they had already done all the work to make the light sabers work like that in the game, cutting stormtroopers in half, but then LucasArts saw it and said "no, we can't have that..." and so they had to go in and disable it. But they left it in there as console command. Sort of thing you could get away with pre-Hot Coffee.

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          April 4, 2013 7:51 PM

          That was part of it, you also had to set the percent chance for dismemberment. Realistic just made sabers incredibly deadly, dismemberment basically made for a chance for instant kill, and would often cause the multiplayer server to crash.

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        April 4, 2013 1:16 PM

        Why is there a ton of blood in a sabre duel?

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          April 4, 2013 3:39 PM

          that guy is running a blood mod. not necessary, IMO - love the cauterized body parts myself.

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        April 4, 2013 8:11 PM

        Oh hell, Massassi Temple is still up and running? Awesome!

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        April 4, 2013 8:17 PM

        More JK2 files: http://www.jediknight.net/jk2files/

        Looks like most of the subdomains at http://www.jediknight2.net are broken, but if you just add them as a directory they mostly work, depending on how the links were written.

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        April 4, 2013 8:25 PM

        This looks awesome.

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          April 4, 2013 9:38 PM

          I remember it being pretty damned fun.

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      April 4, 2013 11:53 AM

      And the first priority? Make the Storm Troopers look better in the game. For some reason they've always looked odd in Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy vs. other Star Wars games.

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        April 4, 2013 8:02 PM

        There were at least a few replacement Storm Trooper models for JK2/JKA as people were cranky about it back in the day. Don't know if the files are still hosted anywhere, but hey.

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      April 4, 2013 7:32 PM

      [deleted]

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      April 4, 2013 8:25 PM

      I am offended by the phrase "early noughties"

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