Rear View: Is STAR WARS Empire at War Still Worth Playing?

Game Overview.

The Best Star Wars Strategy Game There Has Ever Been

I first played the original STAR WARS Empire at War shortly after it came out, and I fell in love with it. The number of hours I have put into this game over the years is hard to summarise. I owned it on disc, then I owned it on Steam, and honestly, if they were to rerelease it now with quality-of-life improvements and perhaps a visual overhaul, I would buy it again.

Honestly, this is the best Star Wars strategy game there has ever been, and it is entirely on par with the very best games you get today. It is unbelievably good, and without the technical restrictions imposed by it having been designed to run on 2006 hardware, this could be a game of truly immense scope.

Disney need to look at this and get someone to make a sequel or remake, pronto.

The Narrative Is Good Enough

The narrative is not brilliant, because this is still a 2006 RTS, but it is good. I enjoyed it, it is Star Wars, and it is basically more of the same universe that I already enjoy. I am not going to pretend the narrative is the reason Empire at War is so good, but what is here works well enough alongside everything else the game does.

The battles are where Empire at War really comes into its own. Space battles can become quite intense, and while the 25-point unit cap can feel restrictive, being able to call in reinforcements means battles can still feel considerably larger than that number initially suggests.

Space Combat Is Fantastic

Despite the limitations of enemy AI from the time, the battles are pretty good. The enemy knows how the game works, it will focus on capital ships and weak points, and the basic combat is essentially a game of rock, paper, scissors in which different units perform better against particular enemies. Fighters can deal with bombers, while lighter ships designed to deal with fighters are not necessarily going to perform well when they are sent against heavy capital ships.

Ground combat, I would say, is probably the weakest part of the game. While it is okay, it feels like it was tacked on, and it is nowhere near as good as the space combat.

Forces of Corruption Is the Version to Play

The Gold Pack includes Forces of Corruption, and there is very little reason to play only the base version anymore unless you specifically want to go back through some of the original campaigns. Forces of Corruption adds more units, quality-of-life improvements and an entirely new faction to play as or fight against, turning the Empire and Rebel Alliance conflict into a three-faction game.

Do I play the Zann Consortium very often? No, I do not, and do I particularly like them? No, I do not. I find them frustrating, especially with the way they can spread their influence across planets, but the Star Wars universe does have a strong criminal undercurrent, so having a criminal third faction fighting both the Empire and the Rebellion at the same time does make sense to me.

Even though I do not particularly enjoy playing as or against the Zann Consortium, I still think Forces of Corruption is the version of Empire at War people should be playing today because there is simply more here.

The Modding Community Is Both Amazing and Frustrating

Empire at War’s modding community is both a source of joy and frustration. The modding community is still active, many of the best mods have been receiving updates for almost 20 years, and there are enormous mods that dramatically increase the scope of the game, showing what Empire at War can become when people push it far beyond what the original developers were able to achieve in 2006.

Unfortunately, as of October 2026, there seems to be a serious issue with the Steam build, resulting in many mods failing to load altogether, while those that do load are crashing far more often.

I have yet to get any of the Workshop mods I have tried working reliably, despite Steam Workshop support being built into the current Steam version. There are also current discussions on the Steam Community from people reporting widespread crashing with mods, including a discussion specifically asking whether as many as 90% of them are crashing.

I tried launching one of the most popular mods around five times, possibly six, and only once did it even boot back into the game correctly. Even then, it eventually crashed. I am sure there are ways to manually install mods or work around some of these problems, and I am going to look into that for my own personal use, but I also have to look at this through the eyes of a novice gamer who may have absolutely no idea how to do any of that.

Steam tells them the game has a Workshop, they subscribe to the mod, click play, and then the game crashes. They may have absolutely no idea why it is happening or what they are supposed to do about it.

The Vanilla Game Is Still Pretty Stable

Thankfully, if you just want to play Empire at War as it is, the experience is considerably better. I think I may have had one crash while playing the unmodded game, but compared with the problems I have had trying to run some of the larger modifications, the normal game has been pretty stable for me.

The enemy AI is surprisingly crafty at times, and while the economy is nothing to write home about, it is okay for what it is.

Obviously, Empire at War is not Stellaris, and the galaxy map offers far fewer strategic options than the latter. Despite holding up very well, we cannot forget that Empire at War is over 20 years old at this point, and I am not expecting it to have the depth of a much newer grand strategy title.

A Last Hurrah for an Era of RTS Games

Empire at War is a game for Star Wars fans, it is a game for RTS fans, and it is a game for people who enjoy games from the noughties. During that period, strategy games genuinely looked like they were on their way out, and for quite a few years it felt as though they perhaps had gone. Very few new releases seemed to keep the genre moving forward, and for the most part, many releases seemed to set it back instead.

We are currently in what I consider a golden age of great RTS games again, with exciting new titles and older games such as Age of Empires II receiving amazing updates decades after release. Back when Empire at War appeared, however, things looked considerably bleaker, and this felt like one of the last hurrahs of the golden and silver eras of the RTS genre, at least from where I was standing at the time.

Personally, I now feel like the best is yet to come for strategy games, but back then Empire at War really did look like it might be part of the genre’s swan song.

STAR WARS Empire at War - Gold Pack FAQ

STAR WARS Empire at War - Gold Pack is a strategy game developed by Petroglyph and published by LucasArts, Lucasfilm, Disney, it released on 16 February 2006, and is available exclusively on PC.

What Peripherals Are Supported?

STAR WARS Empire at War - Gold Pack supports the following peripherals:

• ☑ PC - Mouse and Keyboard

Is There Any Mature Content?

STAR WARS Empire at War - Gold Pack is unrated and contains:

• ☑ Fantasy Violence

Final Verdict.

STAR WARS Empire at War is a fantastic game, and I fully recommend it. The modding situation is frustrating because there are some enormous mods capable of dramatically increasing the scope of the game, but I have had serious problems getting them to work reliably through the Steam Workshop, and novice players may find that side of the game particularly confusing.

For players who simply want to play Empire at War and Forces of Corruption as they are, however, the game is still pretty stable for me, the enemy can be surprisingly difficult, the space battles remain intense, and the game itself is still unbelievably good two decades later.

My favourite faction is still the Rebel Alliance, and after all the years I have spent playing Empire at War, I still think it is the best Star Wars strategy game there has ever been.

Is STAR WARS Empire at War - Gold Pack Worth Playing?

We found STAR WARS Empire at War - Gold Pack to be a good game, meaning it is likely to be enjoyable for most players, despite having a few areas that could be improved upon.

Please Note

Rear View is a review format we use to discuss older games that are no longer receiving official updates or active developer support, and are instead being kept alive through community patches, mods, servers, or fan support.

Rear View articles should not be viewed as representative of the length, depth, or overall format of our traditional review coverage.