Star Wars: Republic Commando was one of the vanishingly few good things to come out of the execrable Star Wars prequel trilogy. A squad-based shooter that followed an elite team of clone troopers throughout the Clone Wars, it took a darker, more serious approach to the Jar Jar infested setting of the prequels. The gameplay was tight and challenging, with surprisingly good squad AI and tense shooter action not seen in the Star Wars universe since Dark Forces.
Now lead programmer Brett Douville takes us on a very informative longplay of the game's campaign, fielding Twitch questions and giving insight into the development of this very special game. In this first part he details the first hour or so of the game, and it's interesting the tricks and sacrifices they had to make developing for both PC and the rather limited original Xbox.
Republic Commando was to be followed by a Stormtrooper-focused sequel called Imperial Commando, which would have leaved the regrettable prequels behind and focused on the Galactic Civil War of the original film trilogy. I've wanted a Stormtrooper game since forever, so it's kind of heartbreaking the sequel never got past pre-production. With Disney slashing and burning everything in development except the questionable new Battlefront game, we'll probably never see Imperial Commando. Still it's fascinating to see Brett Douville play the game he helped make a decade ago.
