In 2026, Bryan is not trying to settle the argument over the greatest Star Wars game ever made. He is trying to help players pick one that will actually boot, load and play without a fight.
That shift is the point of his new list of the 10 best Star Wars games to play in 2026, published after he was asked in 2019, while covering Star Wars Celebration in Chicago, to rank the 10 best Star Wars video games ever made. Bryan said the earlier exercise and the new one do not lead to the same answer because hardware has changed. Availability matters now. So does whether a game works cleanly on modern controllers, Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox and PlayStation systems, and Windows 11.
That is why the 2024 Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection lands so well in this moment. It is available on pretty much any major platform, and it is also part of GOG’s Good Old Game Preservation Program, which curates classic titles and keeps them running well on modern PCs, sometimes with a third-party configuration tool or a fan-favorite quality-of-life mod. Bryan praised the original Battlefront for the way it spotlighted the soldiers in the trenches and let players move through Endor, Hoth and Tatooine as part of the larger war instead of just watching from the sidelines.
The same logic pushes Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga onto the list. It pulls together planets, vehicles, characters from every movie and show, and big set-piece sequences, while also giving full adaptations of The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker. That makes it a different beast from Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, which let players work through the first six episodes in Lego form. Some fans still prefer the older style and are not thrilled that the newer Lego games feature voice-over, but Bryan’s point is practical, not nostalgic: the game is easy to recommend right now.
The Force Unleashed fits the same test. The action game from the 360 era is available as a Nintendo Switch port, an Xbox back-compat version or the Ultimate Sith Edition on PC. It stars Sam Witwer, takes place in the years before the Battle of Yavin and casts the player as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, codenamed Starkiller. Bryan said it remains memorable for its original Legends-era characters, its set pieces, its colorful worlds from the prequels and the classic trilogy, and its storytelling.
There was no clean moment to make this list, Bryan said, because there was never a perfect time to write a list like this. New Star Wars games are coming down the pipeline, including Zero Company, Galactic Racer and Fate of the Old Republic. But that uncertainty is exactly why the list matters today. It is not a museum piece or a verdict on canon. It is a guide to the games that are here, playable and worth downloading now, with the least possible headache for anyone who wants to jump into star wars titles without first wrestling with old software and outdated hardware.
