Two Star Wars games from the 1990s appear on Metacritic's own list of the twenty best Star Wars games: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II at 91 and Rogue Squadron at 85. Metacritic did not start aggregating game reviews until 2001, so almost everything else from the decade has no Metascore at all. X-Wing Alliance's page still reads "tbd." Metacritic says as much in its own list, noting that X-Wing, TIE Fighter and Episode I Racer are missing and might have placed higher.
That is the problem with ranking this decade, and our 2000s and Disney-era lists cannot help. Our player tracker reads Steam every two hours for seventeen Star Wars games, and not one of them is from the 90s. There is no live audience number to lean on here and we are not going to invent one.
So we swapped that column for something more useful anyway: what you can actually buy and run tonight. A 1994 game that installs in two minutes for ten dollars is a different proposition from one locked to a console nobody owns. Alongside that we used documented sales and the awards each game won at the time, which for the early 90s is the only critical record that exists.
The data
Sales are the highest figure we could find published by a tracking firm or the rights holder, not estimates. "Buy today" is what we could confirm on sale in September 2026.
| Game | Year | Metacritic | Sales on record | Buy today |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II | 1997 | 91 | 247,036 US, 1997 | GOG, Steam |
| Rogue Squadron | 1998 | 85 (N64) | 1M+ US on N64 | PC version only |
| Episode I Racer | 1999 | none | 3.12M worldwide | GOG, Steam, consoles |
| Dark Forces | 1995 | none | 952,033 US to 1999 | 2024 remaster |
| Rebel Assault | 1993 | none | 1M | GOG, Steam |
| X-Wing | 1993 | none | ~500,000 ordered by Dec 1993 | GOG, Steam |
| X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter | 1997 | none | 286,002 in 1997 | GOG, Steam |
| TIE Fighter | 1994 | none | none published | GOG, Steam |
| X-Wing Alliance | 1999 | none | none published | GOG, Steam |
| Shadows of the Empire | 1996 | none | none published | PC version on GOG |
Look at row eight. TIE Fighter has no Metascore and no sales figure we could find, and it is still the game most people who were there would put first. PC Gamer ranked it number one in its 50 Best Games of All Time in 1997, first place across the whole medium. Computer Gaming World put it in the Hall of Fame. IGN called it the best Star Wars game ever made in 2010.
That is a real critical record. It just does not fit in a column of numbers, which is exactly how a game like this ends up missing from lists built on Metascores alone.
The ranking
Star Wars: TIE Fighter 1994
Totally Games
- Playing now
- GOG and Steam
No Metascore, no published sales, and the strongest critical record of any Star Wars game ever released. Computer Games Strategy Plus named it the best computer game of 1994 outright, not the best simulation. PC Gamer put it first in its all-time top 50 three years later.
Buy it on GOG rather than Steam if you have the choice. GOG's package is the only place with the 1995 Collector's CD-ROM, which runs at 640x480 with voiced briefings and the Enemies of the Empire campaign. Steam has the 1994 DOS release and the 1998 Windows one, both fine, neither the best version.
Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II 1997
LucasArts
- Metacritic
- 91
- Playing now
- GOG and Steam
- Sold
- 247,036 US
The highest-scoring Star Wars game of the decade and the second highest of all time behind KOTOR. Computer Gaming World gave it Game of the Year for 1997. PC Gamer called it the best computer game ever released the following year. It sold 247,036 copies in the US in 1997, the country's 21st best-selling computer game that year.
It is also the cheapest good decision on this page. Six dollars on GOG buys the game and the Mysteries of the Sith expansion together.
Star Wars: Dark Forces 1995
LucasArts
- Playing now
- 2024 remaster
- Sold
- 952,033 US
The best-documented commercial success of the decade: 952,033 copies in the US by 1999, the 11th best-selling computer game in the country since 1993, and $37.1 million in US revenue. PC Zone gave it 95%, PC Gamer 92%.
It is also the only 90s Star Wars game with a proper modern remaster. Nightdive rebuilt it for its KEX engine in February 2024 for PC and every current console, up to 4K at 120fps, and it reviewed at 78 on PC. The original 1995 release has been pulled from Steam, so the remaster is the version you get now. That is a fair trade.
Star Wars: X-Wing 1993
Totally Games
- Playing now
- GOG and Steam
- Sold
- ~500,000 by Dec 1993
The game that started the flight-sim line and the one that proved a Star Wars game could be a serious simulation. Its launch shipment of 100,000 sold out over one weekend, and retailers had ordered close to 500,000 by December 1993. It took the Origins Award for best science fiction computer game of 1993 and Computer Gaming World's Simulation of the Year.
Same advice as TIE Fighter: the GOG package carries the 1993 floppy version, the 1994 CD-ROM and the 1998 Windows build, plus the Imperial Pursuit and B-Wing tours.
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 1998
Factor 5
- Metacritic
- 85
- Playing now
- PC version only
- Sold
- 1M+ US on N64
An 85 on Metacritic and over a million copies sold in the US, the second best-selling game of December 1998 behind Ocarina of Time. It won the Origins Award for best action computer game that year and swept IGN's 1998 sound awards.
Here is the catch, and it is the same one Rogue Leader has in the 2000s list: the version everyone remembers is the Nintendo 64 one, and it has never been re-released. What you can buy is Rogue Squadron 3D, the PC port, ten dollars on GOG or Steam. It reviewed lower at the time, around 80% against the N64 version's 85, mostly for handling and visuals. It is the only way in without the hardware.
Star Wars Episode I: Racer 1999
LucasArts
- Playing now
- GOG, Steam, consoles
- Sold
- 3.12M
The best-selling Star Wars game of the decade by a distance, and it holds a Guinness World Record for it: 3.12 million copies as of 2011, the best-selling science fiction racing game ever made, ahead of Wipeout and F-Zero. Reviews were good rather than great, averaging in the mid 70s across N64, Dreamcast and PC.
Twenty-seven years on it is the most available game on this page. Aspyr put it on GOG and Steam in 2018 and on Switch, PS4 and Xbox in 2020. The Switch version maps the podracer's two throttles to motion controls, which is either the best or worst idea in Star Wars gaming and we have not settled that internally.
Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance 1999
Totally Games
- Playing now
- GOG and Steam
The last of the Totally Games flight sims and the one that let you fly the Millennium Falcon through the Death Star II. Fifty story missions, which was the fix for what X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter got wrong two years earlier.
We could not find a Metascore (its page literally says "tbd"), a GameRankings average, or a published sales figure for it. What we can tell you is that it is ten dollars on both stores, that GOG rates it 4.6 out of 5 across a hundred reviews, and that it needs a joystick. It sits here on the strength of the design fix, not on evidence we can hold up.
Star Wars: Rebel Assault 1993
LucasArts
- Playing now
- GOG and Steam
- Sold
- 1M
The commercially important one and the least fun to play now. LucasArts shipped 110,000 units on day one, hit half a million by summer 1994, and a million lifetime. Computer Gaming World said it set a new record for CD-ROM game sales, and it made the case that the format had a future.
Critics were split hard. Computer Gaming World praised the visuals as the best in a PC action game to date; Edge gave the PC version 5 out of 10 and Next Generation gave the 3DO and Mac versions 2 out of 5. Both readings were correct. It is on GOG and Steam bundled with Rebel Assault II if you want to see where full-motion video went.
Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter 1997
Totally Games
- Playing now
- GOG and Steam
- Sold
- 286,002 in 1997
286,002 copies and the 14th best-selling computer game of 1997, shipped without a single-player campaign. Edge liked the multiplayer enough for a 90. Next Generation gave it 3 out of 5 and said it was not what it should have been. Lead mission designer David Wessman later took the blame publicly for talking the team out of a story.
The Balance of Power expansion added fifteen-mission campaigns for both sides, and it is included in the ten-dollar version on GOG. Buy it for that, or skip straight to X-Wing Alliance.
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire 1996
LucasArts
- Playing now
- PC version on GOG
The Hoth level. That is the honest reason it is on this list, and it is not nothing: the snowspeeder tow-cable opening was one of the reasons people bought a Nintendo 64 in 1996.
We could not verify an aggregate score or a sales figure for it, which is why it is last rather than higher. The N64 original has never been re-released. The PC port from 1997 is six dollars on GOG with better textures and rendered cutscenes, and it is the only version you can buy.
What the numbers do not capture
Nobody is counting 90s players, including us. Our Steam tracker covers seventeen Star Wars games and the oldest is from 2003. Several games here do sell on Steam and could in principle be counted, but the numbers would be a handful of people at a time and would tell you nothing useful. We would rather leave the column out than pad it.
Metacritic starts in 2001. Every "none" in the Metacritic column above means the score does not exist, not that the game was badly received. Dark Forces has a 95 from PC Zone and a 92 from PC Gamer sitting in the archives. It just has no aggregate, so it vanishes from any list built the easy way.
The SNES and PlayStation shelf is thin. The Super Star Wars trilogy, the Yoda Stories and Lucas Learning oddities, and Masters of Teräs Käsi are all console-locked or gone. Teräs Käsi you are not missing: GameRankings had it at 53.8%, with IGN at 4 out of 10 and GameSpot at 4.4. It is the decade's low point and it is fine that it is hard to find.
The PC catalogue, by contrast, is in remarkable shape. Every 90s PC Star Wars game we ranked is on sale right now, most of them for ten dollars or less, patched for Windows 11. That is unusual for thirty-year-old software and it is the main reason this decade is worth writing about at all.
What to install tonight
Start with TIE Fighter on GOG, ten dollars, and pick the 1995 Collector's CD-ROM from the launcher. If it does not click in an hour it never will, and you are out the price of a sandwich.
Best value on the page: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II at six dollars with Mysteries of the Sith included. It is the highest-rated Star Wars game of the decade and it costs less than a coffee.
Best-looking on a modern machine: the Dark Forces remaster. It is the only one here that will not need a config file and a bit of patience.
If you have a joystick gathering dust: X-Wing Alliance.
Skip Rebel Assault unless you want the history lesson, and skip X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter unless you are buying the Balance of Power version.
The details
- Metacritic scores are Metacritic's, taken from its own 20 best Star Wars games list, which contains exactly two 1990s entries.
- Sales, awards and period review scores are as documented on each game's Wikipedia entry and traced to the original sources there: PC Data and PC Gamer US for the American sales charts, Guinness World Records for Episode I Racer's 3.12 million.
- Availability and prices were checked on the GOG and Steam store pages in September 2026 and are US list prices before any sale.
- We have not played every game on this page. Where the ranking rests on reputation rather than a number, we have said so in that entry.
- This is the third entry in an era series, after the 2000s and the Disney era. The full mega-list follows.