Forbes published a new ranking of the 10 best Star Wars games to play in 2026 and said it changed how it judges them — availability and compatibility with modern controllers and hardware now matter most. Sam Witwer, whose voice anchored The Force Unleashed, is one human figure tied to that shift: Forbes pointed to multiple modern versions of that game and put it back into circulation for players on current platforms.
The list is practical by design. Forbes said the 2024 Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection is available on pretty much any major platform and called the original Battlefront a must-play for its authentic Star Wars locations such as Endor, Hoth and Tatooine. Forbes also highlighted LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, noting it includes full adaptations of The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker; Star Wars News Net added that the LEGO game boasts more than 300 playable characters. Star Wars News Net framed its own top-10 around popular Star Wars-themed games and praised Star Wars Jedi Survivor for building on Fallen Order with a beautifully detailed, enormous environment, natural-feeling lightsaber battles and a touching narrative.
The numbers behind the nostalgia give the new list weight. Comic Book Resources reports commercial milestones that show why older titles still matter: LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga sold about 5 million units, The Force Unleashed sold roughly 4 million, Knights of the Old Republic moved about 3.2 million copies when it was regularly available in stores, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith sold around 3.32 million copies, and Star Wars Episode I: Racer sold about 3.12 million units worldwide. Those sales underscore why publishers and players keep circling back to these properties even as the criteria for recommendation change.
Context matters here. Forbes said it had previously covered Star Wars Celebration in Chicago and ranked all-time great Star Wars games for another outlet; the new 2026 list is explicitly different. Where an all-time list once centered on historical impact or innovation, Forbes now frames its picks around which star wars titles are easy to recommend to someone who wants to plug in a controller and play without wrestling with compatibility or fragility.
That change exposes a tension between legacy and accessibility. Star Wars News Net and Comic Book Resources reminded readers why certain games are revered — Knights of the Old Republic for its ancient-Republic storytelling, Republic Commando for commanding an élite clone squad in the Clone Wars, Empire at War as a real-time strategy classic, and Outlaws for its criminal-underworld setting between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Yet Forbes’ new filter elevates remasters and ports: the 2024 remastered version of Bounty Hunter was credited with giving a new generation the chance to experience Jango Fett’s story, and The Force Unleashed appears in multiple modern forms, from a Nintendo Switch port to an Xbox backward-compatible edition and the Ultimate Sith Edition on PC.
The practical verdict is straightforward. If your question is which star wars titles to load on a current machine, Forbes’ 2026 list points to games that are both representative of the franchise and reliably playable now — the Battlefront Classic Collection for its cross-platform reach and iconic maps, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga for breadth and character count, The Force Unleashed for its modern availability and its Sam Witwer–anchored story, and Star Wars Jedi Survivor for its technical and narrative advances over Fallen Order. It is a clear editorial judgment: in 2026, recommendability depends less on legacy acclaim and more on whether players can actually sit down and play.
