Twelve years ago, the Star Wars galaxy changed in a way that still shapes gaming conversations now.
On April 25, 2014, Lucasfilm published its now-famous announcement, “The Legendary Star Wars Expanded Universe Turns a New Page,” confirming that the old Expanded Universe would be rebranded as Star Wars Legends. That move hit books and comics hardest in the public conversation, but it also changed the status of a huge chunk of Star Wars gaming history overnight.
That meant a long list of beloved titles — from Knights of the Old Republic and Jedi Knight to The Force Unleashed, Republic Commando, and Dark Forces — were no longer part of the main official canon timeline. They were still Star Wars. Still playable. Still important. But now they lived under the Legends banner instead.
The day old Star Wars games entered a different timeline
For a lot of players, this was the moment Star Wars gaming split into two identities.
Before 2014, older LucasArts games existed inside the same broad Expanded Universe ecosystem as the novels and comics. It was messy, sure, but it gave fans the sense that all these stories belonged to one giant shared sandbox. Then Lucasfilm reset the board.
The official line was that only the six films and The Clone Wars would remain at the core of continuity, while future storytelling would be built under a new unified canon. That instantly pushed many classic Star Wars games into the “great stories, different continuity” category.
And yes, that still stings a little.
Legends did not mean irrelevant
The funny part is that “Legends” never actually killed these games. If anything, it gave some of them a second life.
A lot of the best older Star Wars games only became more mythic after the canon reset. KOTOR did not stop mattering because it became Legends. If anything, it became even more sacred. Same with Dark Forces, Jedi Outcast, and Empire at War. These were no longer just old games. They became relics from a previous version of Star Wars history — one fans still revisit constantly.
You can see that legacy all over our own complete list of all Star Wars games ever made, because so many of the franchise’s most loved titles now sit in that Legends-era space.
And the old games still cast a huge shadow
That is the bigger point here.
The 2014 canon reset may have changed the label, but it did not erase the impact. Modern Star Wars keeps borrowing the vibe, characters, aesthetics, and ideas of the old Expanded Universe, even when it does not fully restore the stories themselves.
So yes, on paper, this was the day Star Wars games officially became Legends.
In practice? It was the day a lot of them stopped being just games and started becoming folklore.
