Star Wars: Empire at War

Star Wars: Empire at War (sometimes abbreviated EaW) is a Real-time tactics (RTT) and Real-time strategy (RTS) video game developed by Petroglyph and published by LucasArts, that takes place in the Star Wars universe. Originally announced for a fall 2005 release, the game was released on February 16, 2006.

Promising to end the perceived mediocrity of past Star Wars RTS games (like Star Wars: Force Commander and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds), Empire at War started from the ground up. The game was developed by Petroglyph, comprising many former members of Westwood Studios (known for the Command & Conquer series). Petroglyph developed a completely new engine specifically for EaW known as Alamo. It uses several higher-end shader effects such as soft shadows, specular lighting, and particle effects for dust clouds and explosions.

The game spawned a sizeable mod community, and was followed up by an expansion pack, Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption, taking place between the aftermath of the Battle of Yavin and the Battle of Endor. Starting in 2017, the title and its expansion have received occasional official support for its Steam release, including updated multiplayer support, community mod support, an update to a 64-bit architecture, and numerous bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements. These updates have continued as recently as November 20, 2023.

Text and facts from the “Star Wars: Empire at War” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.