Star Wars Bounty Hunter Remastered: A step back from the precipice…

Remasters and remakes are extremely commonplace these days, ranging from lovingly updated remakes to low-effort or straight-up broken ports. Aspyr, who mostly deals in remakes (and a lot of Star Wars ones at that), has not had a great track record as of late.

Their remasters have been serviceable, but not top-notch (especially compared to stuff like Nightdive Studios tremendous remaster of Star Wars: Dark Forces) but then they had a trio of fairly huge missteps with failed promises on their Star Wars Knight of The Old Republic II remaster, developing and then basically being forced off a high budget from the ground up remake of the original Knights of the Old Republic. Then most recently a disastrous launch of their Star Wars Battlefront Collection. To put in mildly, Aspyr is not in gamers’ good graces at the moment.

So with this in mind their latest remaster of an old Star Wars game has recently been released on pretty much every major platform, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. Calling the game a classic might be a stretch but it was a solid enough effort at the time and one of a handful of games in the Star Wars universe that has you doing something besides being a Jedi. But does Aspyr, after a string of disappointing remasters, finally deliver a solid package that you’ll want to experience?

So I should mention I purchased Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Remastered on Steam and played it only on my Steamdeck so this will somewhat double as a “Disney On Deck” entry as well.

Firstly, the good news. Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Remastered runs superbly and looks very good compared to its original 2002 version. Like this may be the best work Aspyr has done to date in getting a much older game to look somewhat modern. It won’t stand up to the likes of AAA Star Wars games out now, but if someone just told you this was something made by a smaller indie label today at a budget price that takes place in the Star Wars universe, you could believe it and that’s impressive.

Extras are pretty much what you had in the original release but there’s some cool stuff like artwork, bloopers(!) and any codes that worked twenty years ago? They’ll work in this version too which is always nice.

But then the gameplay starts. Now, this is isn’t as bad as I first make it out to sound. Like I stated previously, the original game was a solid if not standout effort and that largely remains here. It’s cool to go around as Jango Fett shooting aliens and monsters and flying around in your jet pack around somewhat open levels while a somewhat inconsequential but cool little story about how Dooku comes to select Fett as the model for The Clone Army is told.

But Star Wars: Bounty Hunter had some fairly rough edges in 2002, and Aspyr has done little, if anything to smooth those over. While levels aren’t huge, it’s often confusing where to go with very little if any direction given which can be frustrating (and often lead to things like you exploring with your jet pack but finding nowhere to land and falling to your death there are a pretty finite amount of lives in this game).

Bounty hunting, which you think would be a huge part of the game, is actually superfluous and cumbersome. Like it’s a pain, especially in the heat of battle, to scan and identify a target. And if you haven’t scanned them and end up shooting them? It doesn’t count for a bounty. It’s entirely optional but YOU ARE A BOUNTY HUNTER. Optional bounties that are fun should be a major part of the game.

And finally, the game camera. It is actually improved compared to the original game, but the camera still goes wonky at like the worst times in Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Remastered making shooting enemies and traversing a bit of chaos at times. Not enough to ruin the game mind you, but it was an issue then and still an issue now.

I do want to sum up that I think Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Remastered is a big step back from the misfires we’ve seen recently from Aspyr. Is it a remaster that improves on the original enough to make it vastly superior to the original with lots of new bells and whistles? No, but it is an improvement in some significant ways (mostly with how good it looks) and offered for a pretty reasonable price. If you enjoyed the original or want to play a Star Wars game where you aren’t a Jedi (maybe even as a warmup to Star Wars: Outlaws which is out in about three weeks), Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Remastered is probably worth checking out.