Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter remake is above average, but be prepared for the original’s rough edges

You might have thought of Star Wars: Outlaws as your next stop on your journey to a galaxy far, far away, but Star Wars: The Bounty Hunters remake, developed by Aspyr, will take you back to the Star Wars underworld of the PS2/GC era.

I distinctly remember that the original PS2 version of Bounty Hunter became a personal favorite of mine back in 2002, mostly because my favorite character from Attack of the Clones was Jango Fett. He wore Mandalorian armor, did some cool moves on screen, and had two awesome laser pistols, so of course he was my favorite. That sounded like logic 10 years ago. I didn’t get the game itself until just before Christmas, but you can bet that I was obsessed with it for months after that. Long story short: I loved the game a lot anyway, so I had high hopes for Aspyr’s latest Star Wars remake.

When Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection was released earlier this year, reviews were mostly negative for a variety of reasons. While I thought the core experience was well-maintained (and previous platform-exclusive content was re-added!), the online aspects of the game were a bit of a mess, and the bloated install size on most platforms was confusing to say the least. Most of these issues have been ironed out now, but I can’t blame veteran Star Wars players for being cautious when the Bounty Hunter remaster was released a while ago.

I replayed half of the game at an alarming rate considering how long it’s been since my last proper playthrough, and I’m happy to report that Bounty Hunter Remastered is close to Aspyr’s best Star Wars work and washes away the sour experience I had after reading Star Wars Battlefront (even if that collection is totally fine now). Jango Fett’s armor has never been shinier, the locales are more vivid than ever, and yet Bounty Hunter remains one of the most emotional and unique Star Wars games ever made, thanks to the preservation of the original art direction, despite the texture upgrades we’ve come to expect from these games, plus some nice touches like dynamic lighting, ambient occlusion, and motion blur (all of which can be turned off).

More importantly, the game plays much better than its original PS2 (and later PS3/4) and GameCube counterparts, thanks to an optional (but default) control scheme that makes it behave like you’d expect a third-person shooter to behave. The unmodified version had some odd bindings that made certain actions more cumbersome than they needed to be, which is probably the biggest QoL change in the entire remake. On PC, however, I encountered some weirdness related to trigger sensitivity that caused Jango to randomly drop in and out of aiming. No such issues occurred on the Steam Deck, but the Xbox controller I used behaved perfectly fine in other games, so I’m pretty sure it was an issue with the dead zones in this particular game that may or may not have been fixed.

Performance is also an issue for these remasters, but it shouldn’t be. Of course, anyone with a powerful modern PC or PS5 or Series X won’t have to worry about this, but many of the remasters are unusually demanding on below-average hardware. I can’t speak for other platforms, but the PC version is completely locked at 120 FPS (which seems to be the maximum frame rate) and tops out at 2K on the 4070Ti + 7800X3D version, which is to be expected. However, there was one small issue at the beginning that took a while to resolve: Bounty Hunter would default to using CPU graphics again and again, instead of that awesome dedicated Nvidia GPU. The result? FPS below 30 no matter my settings. It took a moment to notice in Task Manager that the dedicated GPU wasn’t being used fundamentalThe developer has been notified and may have already released a fix, but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re experiencing weird framerate drops.

Ultimately, I made the switch to Steam Deck, as retro games tend to shine on Valve’s big handheld PC consoles, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Bounty Hunter topped out at 60 FPS at native resolution without dropping. I understand that higher-level play can push the already high GPU load over a threshold that can cause performance to drop, but otherwise this is a great portable title with excellent visuals.

Bounty Hunters remains the most difficult of the Star Wars games after the first third or so, and the remaining four acts significantly increase the overall combat difficulty and twist the platforming sections (you’ll need to use a jetpack for most of the game) into memorable levels that seem huge for a linear game even by today’s standards. It’s a good reminder of how big LucasArts dreamed of things in the early 2000s, given the hardware limitations. Other aspects related to the many Star Wars locations you visit, such as the variety of NPCs in some levels or the excellent sound design, highlight the attention to detail that went into these games in the company’s youngest and most ambitious era.

On the other hand, most boss fights aren’t exactly easy, as they can be defeated by holding down the triggers of the dual Westar-34 pistols, strafing, and speeding up. Elsewhere, however, there are plenty of great opportunities to make the most of Jango’s varied arsenal, with later levels requiring a degree of planning and safer actions to stay alive. Curiosity is also rewarded this time around, with players getting an unlockable Boba Fett skin and a slew of achievements tailored for the most dedicated players. Yes, getting 100% of all the minor bounties will take a while.

Overall, Aspyr has managed to pull it off without diving headfirst into the mire. If you’re the kind of player who likes remakes that are lightly remastered, you can only criticize it for being too faithful and conservative. The latest version of Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is neither of those things, but continues Aspyr’s inspiring tradition of preserving and polishing classics with respect and awe. At around $20, you can’t ask for more. And besides: it’s still a pretty awesome (legendary) prequel to Attack of the Clones, with a much richer story than you might initially expect.