Star Wars: The Arcade Game, often shortened to just Star Wars, is a product of Atari's arcade development. It was launched on May 5 of 1983. This game puts players in the cockpit of a spacecraft, offering a first-person space simulator experience. The game's narrative is drawn from Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. More specifically, the gameplay is centered around the events of the Battle of Yavin. The game's visuals are constructed using 3D color vector graphics. It is celebrated as one of the most well-regarded video games ever made. It achieved significant commercial success during its release, particularly boosted by the release of Return of the Jedi in theaters. Numerous versions for home consoles and computers have been made available over the years.
Players take on the persona of Luke Skywalker, known as "Red Five," piloting an X-wing fighter from a first-person perspective. Unlike similar arcade titles, the player isn't required to eliminate every enemy to progress. Instead, the primary objective is to survive the level by skillfully dodging or destroying incoming enemy fire.
The player's main objective is to obliterate the Death Star through a sequence of three attack phases:
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Phase 1: The game starts with the player in space, positioned above the Death Star. The player must engage in aerial combat with Darth Vader and opposing TIE Fighters.
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Phase 2: The player approaches the surface of the Death Star, where laser turrets emerge from towers to confront the player. Successfully destroying all towers grants the player a substantial bonus in points.
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Phase 3: The player navigates through the final trench, heading towards the thermal exhaust port, which serves as the Death Star's vulnerability. Along the way, the player must evade laser fire and various catwalks obstructing the path. Upon reaching the trench's end, the player must descend to a low altitude to launch a proton torpedo into the port. A successful hit results in the Death Star's destruction, and the game restarts at a higher difficulty setting. Failure requires the player to repeat the third phase from the beginning.
With each successive attempt to destroy the Death Star, the game's difficulty escalates. TIE Fighters fire more frequently, the number of laser towers and batteries increases in the second phase, and the trench run becomes filled with more obstacles and laser fire. In contrast to the movie, where the units utilize laser cannons, the enemy units in the game fire projectile fireballs, providing the player with an opportunity to destroy the shots aimed at them.
Attentive players might notice that after the TIE Fighter waves, as you approach the Death Star, the yellow grid lines on its surface spell out "MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU" on odd-numbered waves. On even-numbered waves, various peoples' names are displayed. While flying through the trench towards the vulnerable exhaust port, "USE THE FORCE" is spelled out in green until a shot is fired. Avoiding the fireballs and refraining from firing any shots until using one shot to launch the torpedoes into the exhaust port earns the player a significant "USE THE FORCE" bonus. This is encouraged by Obi Wan at the start of the trench sequence.
The game incorporated digitized voice samples from the movie, featuring Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, James Earl Jones as Darth Vader, Harrison Ford as Han Solo, and the electronic sounds of R2-D2. It was among the first games to utilize digitized voice capabilities, a key factor in its popularity. In some instances, the first level featured The Imperial March. This was due to the Arcade Game's release occurring after Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back.
The game was produced in two forms: a standard upright cabinet and a more elaborate sit-down version. The controls consisted of a yoke control (resembling a steering wheel) with several buttons, all of which fired the fighter's laser.
The game could be repurposed as The Empire Strikes Back arcade game.
Later, it was released as Star Wars: The Arcade Game for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit home computers, ColecoVision, and Commodore 64. The Commodore 64 version had programming done by Daniel James Gallagher with voice sampling by Andy Beverage.
Domark released the game for home computers in Europe in 1987. In that same year, Broderbund obtained the rights from Lucasfilm to create Star Wars games. Juergen Friedrich ported the Macintosh and Amiga versions of the arcade game, and Broderbund published them in North America in 1989. In 1991, an updated version of the game, titled Star Wars: Attack on the Death Star, was released for the NEC PC-98 and Sharp X68000 systems. This version included an extended introductory cutscene at the game's start.
In 2003's Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, all three classic trilogy arcade games are unlockable (although unlocking Return of the Jedi requires a cheat code). The arcade system's appearance in Rebel Strike showed that the upright version of the arcade cabinet was used, rather than the sit-down model.
Original concepts from the game, notably the Meridian trench being filled with obstacles instead of being barren as shown in the movie, were later reused for the Battle of Yavin mission in the 2001 game Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, as well as its co-op version in Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike. The latter also featured the arcade game as an unlockable bonus. According to the making of documentary for Rebel Strike, the arcade game was the source of inspiration for the Rogue Squadron series.
The 2012 non-canon web game Star Wars Galactic Spy included the arcade cabinet as an item that players can find in Mos Eisley. Stormtroopers are depicted waiting for their turn to play the game.
The cabinets were featured in the films Gremlins and No Small Affair (both released in 1984). The trench sequence is shown in Gremlins as the Gremlins play the game, and an upright cabinet appears in the film No Small Affair.