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

STAR WARS™ Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast™

The Legacy of Star Wars Dark Forces™ and Star Wars® Jedi Knight lives on in the intense first-person action of Jedi Outcast.

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.