Rear View: Is STAR WARS Galactic Battlegrounds Saga Still Worth Playing?

Game Overview.

One of My Favourite RTS Games Ever

I originally played STAR WARS Galactic Battlegrounds shortly after it originally released, and it had a huge influence on me as a young teen.

It was one of my favourite games, and I must have played it more than almost any other game I have ever owned, with the possible exception of Mount & Blade: Warband, which is an entirely different conversation because that is one of the greatest games ever made.

I am also not including live service games here, because those things are specifically designed to suck up ridiculous amounts of your time.

Coming back to Galactic Battlegrounds all these years later, I am amazed at how well it has aged. Of course, the resolution is a little dated, and getting it started on a modern computer is not exactly straightforward, especially on Windows 11, which requires me to spam the Esc key to bypass through a couple of broken video screens before I can actually get into the game, but once I am through all of that, it is just as magical as it was when I first played it.

Age of Empires II and Star Wars Just Works

Galactic Battlegrounds is built on the foundations created by Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, and it really works.

Taking those foundations and using them for a Star Wars RTS turned out to be an excellent combination, and even today the actual gameplay remains immensely enjoyable.

The 8 campaigns included with the complete edition are a little dated by modern standards, but I still really enjoyed playing through them, and even the get characters and stories created specifically for Galactic Battlegrounds are pretty written all things considered, such as Jedi Master Echuu Shen-Jon, one of my all time favorite Jedi characters.

If Disney released a new expansion for Galactic Battlegrounds using this same engine, even with the resolution limitations and everything else that comes with a game this old, I would play it without hesitation.

The Scenario Editor Is Still Fantastic

One of the things that gave Galactic Battlegrounds so much life was its Scenario Editor, and it remains fantastic. The community surrounding the game has obviously reduced greatly over the years, but there is still a remnant of a modern community keeping it alive, and beyond that there is a huge backlog of scenarios and modifications created by players when the game was originally much more active.

A lot of that old community content can still be used with the Steam and GOG versions today, which gives an already content-rich game even more to play around with.

That community-created content was a huge part of games like this in their prime, and Galactic Battlegrounds benefited massively from it, as it allowed players to finish the official content and then disappear into custom scenarios and modifications created by themselves and the wider community.

I Want to Give It a Perfect Ten, but I Can’t

As a huge fan of Galactic Battlegrounds, I want to give it a perfect score, but I cannot do so honestly, as I must look at the game as it exists today rather than purely through nostalgia.

Multiplayer is one of the clearest examples of that problem.

There are ways to get multiplayer matches working using third-party tools and community solutions, but I have to look at this through the eyes of a novice gamer as well, and somebody buying an old Star Wars RTS should not necessarily be expected to start researching third-party software and compatibility solutions before they can use everything the game originally offered.

The same problem applies to simply getting Galactic Battlegrounds running properly on a modern PC.

It does not start particularly well for me on Windows 11 without either compatibility tweaks, file edits or, as I tend to do, repeatedly hitting Escape until I get through the broken loading screens. It also crashes more often than I remember it crashing when I originally played it, which is a pity because the computer I used to run this game on back then was basically a toaster compared to my current gaming rig.

Modern hardware obviously has more than enough power to run it, but compatibility layers and all the other problems that come with running software this old on modern Windows make it considerably more difficult to recommend to novice gamers.

For Elder Millennials Like Me, It Is an Easy Recommendation

For millennials, especially elder millennials like myself who played Galactic Battlegrounds when it was new, I cannot recommend it highly enough. The same goes for people who are already fans of the older Age of Empires games and know what they are getting into with older PC software. If you are comfortable editing files, dealing with compatibility settings and finding community solutions when something does not work properly, there is still an absolutely fantastic RTS underneath all of those modern compatibility problems.

For everyone else, just make sure you know what you are getting into before buying it. It may take a little work to get into the game properly, and you had better save often in case it crashes, but once everything is working, I still think Galactic Battlegrounds looks great for its age, plays great and is immensely fun to play.

The technical problems are frustrating because the game itself has aged far better than the software surrounding it.

There Are Some Brilliantly Strange Bits Too

There are also some fun little Easter eggs and oddities to look out for, including what appears to be a picture of Natalie Portman being reused as an entirely different character. Was that a stupid move? Maybe, but it was a bold one nonetheless. Galactic Battlegrounds comes from an era when games could be a little strange around the edges, and in some ways that is part of the charm of going back to something like this more than two decades later.

The expansion also lets you spend more time with the Confederacy and introduces more content around the prequel era, while characters such as Echuu Shen-Jon give the game stories that existed outside the main films. I loved playing through all of it when I was younger, and coming back today has reminded me just how much I still enjoy this game.

Please Give Galactic Battlegrounds the Definitive Edition Treatment

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is simply far more approachable for a modern player, and I would love to see Galactic Battlegrounds receive the same sort of treatment. If all the relevant copyright holders could get together and decide, “Hey, let’s do this for the community and make some money at the same time,” I think it would be great. Give it proper support for modern resolutions, fix the compatibility problems, make multiplayer straightforward again and preserve everything that already makes the original so good.

I do not need Galactic Battlegrounds completely redesigned or turned into something modern. The game itself still works for me, and I would happily play more content using essentially the same systems today. W

hat it desperately needs is the kind of technical restoration that Age of Empires II received, because there is a fantastic game here that is increasingly being held back by the realities of running a 2001 PC game on modern hardware and operating systems.

STAR WARS Galactic Battlegrounds Saga FAQ

STAR WARS Galactic Battlegrounds Saga is a strategy game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Disney, Lucasfilm, LucasArts, it released on 9 November 2001, and is available exclusively on PC.

What Peripherals Are Supported?

STAR WARS Galactic Battlegrounds Saga supports the following peripherals:

• ☑ PC - Mouse and Keyboard

Is There Any Mature Content?

STAR WARS Galactic Battlegrounds Saga is unrated and contains:

• ☑ Violence

Final Verdict.

For nostalgia addicts, Galactic Battlegrounds is well worth playing, and for people who know how to deal with compatibility layers, file edits and the other quirks of old PC games, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I still love it, and once I am actually in the game, that same magic I remember from when I was a young teen is still there. For everyone else, however, I have to be real about what you are buying. It is not the easiest game to get running perfectly on a modern PC, multiplayer takes additional effort, and crashes mean you really should save often, so novice players may want to think about it before committing to a purchase.

Is STAR WARS Galactic Battlegrounds Saga Worth Playing?

We found STAR WARS Galactic Battlegrounds Saga 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.