Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is developed by and part of . It was initially developed for the , and consoles and on , second-generation, , , and Java-equipped mobile phone handhelds. The game was released in North America on September 16, 2008, in Australia and Southeast Asia on September 17, and in Europe on September 19. LucasArts was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. An Ultimate Sith Edition of the game, containing both new and previously released downloadable content, was released in November 2009, and later ported to the and. An enhanced remaster of the Wii version, developed by , was released on April 20, 2022.The Force Unleashed is a in which the player's character's weapons are and a .
Developers treated the main character's lightsaber like another Force power and wanted to ensure "something visceral and cool" happened with each button-push.
The game has a system for stringing lightsaber attacks and for combining lightsaber attacks with Force powers. earned by killing enemies and finding artifacts can be used to increase Starkiller's powers and traits. The gameplay is intended to be easy to learn; the development team included "horrible" gamers to help ensure the game's accessibility.
Players can casually through the game, but the game rewards those who take a stealthy, more tactical approach. The game includes enemies that are easy to overcome; game difficulty arises from presenting these enemies in large numbers that can wear down the player's character. Additionally, enemies learn from the player's character's attacks; using the same attack on different characters can sometimes lead to the player's character doing less damage.
The enemies, which number over 50, have various strengths and weaknesses; developers faced the difficulty of effectively placing them throughout the game's varied environments
