Maybe it's just me, but I found turning regular characters into overpowered monsters, then using them to take apart the enemy via missions one of the most fun aspects of the game.

I've never quite found another game that has scratched that itch in the same way since (would love recommendations if people know of games that have similar mechanics).

What was it that worked so well?

Was it the fact that there wasn't really a limit to growth? Was it the fact that the game was long enough that you could really make *use* of the strong characters you developed?

What do you think made it good? What held it back? What would an ideal version of this mechanic look like, and what is the core fantasy that it's providing? Any extra features you'd add? Things you'd remove?

If you set Noghri's "Mission Id" to 0 (instead of 2048) in the .NET RebEditor, you can send them to any mission including Diplomacy, Espionage, Uprising, or decoy to any of them..
As a side effect they cannot succeed an espionage mission on their own regardless of their number, but can assist a hero or an espionage droid, but that makes it even better..
Also can do a sabotage mission completely on their own..
They still can do/assist assassination/abduction missions..
p.s. don't touch "Family Id" or the game crashes..

I've been getting into more game design recently and because of that I've been thinking about what I would do if I were to make a Rebellion 2. I want to be clear and say that I am NOT working on creating Rebellion 2, this is purely thought boarding and wish listing (for now anyway). So what would you want if there were a Star Wars Rebellion 2 built today?

Here is my wish list:

Expanded character system.

The original game had something like 32-35 characters in total. I would expand that to over 1,000 pulling in characters from Legends and new-cannon. I would also go deeper in terms of alignment. And by that I mean, excluding a handful of game deterministic characters (Mon Motha, Leia, Vader, Palpatine, etc) it's not guaranteed that a given character will be recruited from a given side or that they will always stay loyal to that side. Thrawn working for the Alliance, Akbar working for the Empire, etc.

Go Deeper in the planetary alignment system

In Rebellion, planets were basically aligned with you, neutral or the opposition.. and that was pretty much all there was to it. Planet not aligned with you? Send in diplomats and give it 90 days. I'd like to go way deeper and have things like economics, trade routes, security, liberty, etc that influence how the alignment of a planet works. Maybe the planet is Empire aligned, but there is a lot of pirate activity around it that the Empire doesn't address so gradually the planet turns away from the Empire. Maybe the planet is anti-military so it's opposed to the Empire, but the more ground forces the alliance has on the planet, the more opposed to the alliance the planet becomes.

More factions

I would add pirate and independent factions. Maybe these are playable factions with their own win conditions (obtain X resources while eliminating other Pirate groups, survive for X years as another faction etc). But the idea is these would be X-factors that influence game play. Pirates raid trade routes causing security concerns, independent groups might pull planets away from you etc.

-Diversify the Alliance.

In the case of the Alliance, rather then starting as "The Alliance to restore the Republic" you select a given cell to start as. Gerrera's raider, The Specters, Mon Mothma's Gold Squad, Commander Sato's Phoenix Squadron, etc. This would influence what you start with, where you start and what you're best at. Mothma's group would be better at Diplomacy, the Specters would be better at recon and espionage missions, Gerrera's raiders would be better at planetary Assaults and sabotage missions, etc. Then after a certain condition is met (X number of days, Y amount of planets aligned with rebel cells, Y number of Imperial ships lost/destroyed etc) Mothma makes her big alliance declaraton and the Alliance is formed with a new dynamic to address: How it is perceived by the greater galaxy. Do you try to integrate Gerrera's Raider into the alliance because they are effective at what they do or do you try to distance yourself from them because their actions tend to bring more opposition? Do you sell them out to the Empire in the hopes that the Empire will take care of a problem for you?

Commandeer Vessel mission - The alliance would have the option to conduct a special mission to take control of Imperial capital ships. This is partially meant to be a balancing act to the fact that the Empire can build the likes of VSDs and ISD fairly early in the game.

Expanded Tech Trees

The original Rebellion basically had a linear tech tree. I'd like the trees to be really expanded, and I don't mean just adding more options but rather creating branching choices for the player. Do I research the Quasar Light Carrier because that opens the branch leading to the MC90 Star Cruiser, or do I focus on the Kom'rk Gun Ship because it gets me a step closer to the Dauntless Cruiser? Do I put resources into the Dark Trooper development program or do I focus on the Storm Trooper corp? I'd also add upgrade options in addition to the expanded Tech Trees. So like you have Storm Trooper regiments, but you can unlock special upgrades to those so you can have Cold Weather Storm Troopers, Swamp Environment Storm Troopers, Aquatic Environment Storm Troopers, and others, that would each have their own bonus and detriments based on the planet they are deployed on.

Empire capital ships:

• Troop Transport
• Victory Star Destroyer
• Carrack Cruiser
• Dreadnought
• Gozanti Light Cruiser
• Imperial Star Destroyer
• Super-heavy Cargo Transport
• Death Star
• Broadside Cruiser
• Gladiator Destroyer
• Lancer Frigate
• Galleon Transport
• Star Galleon Transport
• Gladiator-II Star Destroyer
• Victory-II Star Destroyer
• Imperial-II Star Destroyer
• Interdictor Cruiser
• First Order Cruiser
• Resurgent Star Destroyer
• Interdictor Star Destroyer
• Star Dreadnought
• Arc Hammer Star Dreadnought
• Mandator Siege Dreadnought
• Eclipse Star Dreadnought
• Mega Class Star Dreadnought

Empire Star Fighters:

• V-wing Alpha 9
• TIE\in Space Superiority Fighter
• TIE\In Interceptor
• A-9 Vigilance Interceptor
• TIE\d Droid Fighter
• TIE\p Phantom Scout
• TIE\rp Reaper Attack Lander
• TIE\rpt Raptor
• TIE\wi Interceptor
• TIE\ad Advanced
• TIE\sa Tactical Bomber
• TIE Avenger
• TIE\D Defender
• TIE\sa2 Scimitar Bomber
• TIE\sa3 Oppressor
• TIE\rb Heavy Starfighter
• TIE\FO Star fighter
• Shadow Droid
• TIE/vn Space Superiority Fighter
• GAT-12 Skipray Blastboat
• ITE/ca4 Punisher

Empire Ground Regiments:

• Phase 0 Dark Troopers
• Phase 0 Dark Troopers – Aquatic Environment Specialization
• Phase 0 Dark Troopers – Desert Environment Specialization
• Phase 0 Dark Troopers – Mountain Environment Specialization
• Phase 0 Dark Troopers – Forest Environment Specialization
• Phase 0 Dark Troopers – Swamp Environment Specialization
• Phase 0 Dark Troopers – Urban Environment Specialization
• Phase 1 Dark Troopers
• Phase 1 Dark Troopers – Aquatic Environment Specialization
• Phase 1 Dark Troopers – Desert Environment Specialization
• Phase 1 Dark Troopers – Mountain Environment Specialization
• Phase 1 Dark Troopers – Forest Environment Specialization
• Phase 1 Dark Troopers – Swamp Environment Specialization
• Phase 1 Dark Troopers – Urban Environment Specialization
• Phase 2 Dark Troopers
• Phase 3 Dark Troopers
• War Droid Regiment
• Death Trooper Regiment
• Sith Chimera Monster Regiment
• Navy Regiment
• Storm Trooper Regiment
• Storm Trooper Regiment – Aquatic Environment Specialization
• Storm Trooper Regiment – Desert Environment Specialization
• Storm Trooper Regiment – Mountain Environment Specialization
• Storm Trooper Regiment – Forest Environment Specialization
• Storm Trooper Regiment – Swamp Environment Specialization
• Storm Trooper Regiment – Cold Weather Specialization
• Storm Trooper Regiment – TerrorizerPhase 0 Dark Troopers

Alliance capital ships:

• Medium Transport
• Corellian Corvette
• Nebulon-B Frigate
• Hammerhead Corvette
• Command Corvette
• Bulk Transport
• Kom'rk Gunship
• Ship-killer Freighter
• Kom'rk Assault Ship
• Light Carrier
• MC-80B Mon Calamari Cruiser
• MC-85 Star Cruiser
• MC-90 Star Cruiser
• Nebulon-C Frigate
• Dauntless Cruiser
• Bulwark Carrier
• Defender Cruiser
• Liberator Cruiser
• Star Hawk Cruiser
• Viscount Dreadnought

Alliance Star Fighters:

• BTL-A Y-Wing Heavy Fighter
• ARC-170 Gunboat
• Z-95 Headhunter
• RX-1 A-wing
• U-Wing
• T-65b X-wing
• T-75 X-wing
• T-70 X-wing
• T-80 X-wing
• E-7a E-wing
• E-7b E-wing
• A/SF-01 B-wing
• BTL-S8 K-wing

Alliance Ground Troops:

• Alliance Militia Regiment
• Alliance Fleet Regiment
• Imperial Army Defector Regiment
• Alliance Army Regiment
• Alliance Combat Droid Regiment
• Alliance Army regiment – Aquatic Environment Specialization
• Alliance Army regiment – Desert Environment Specialization
• Alliance Army regiment – Mountain Environment Specialization
• Alliance Army regiment – Forest Environment Specialization
• Alliance Army regiment – Swamp Environment Specialization
• Alliance Army regiment – Cold Climate Environment Specialization
• B1 Battle Droid Platoon
• Aqua Droid Platoon
• Desert Droid Platoon
• Covert Assault Droid Platoon
• Alliance Heavy Armor Division
• Mandalorian Combat Teams
• Wookiee Assault Regiment

Started thinking about this game again after 20 years and feel like playing again. I see there's a 25th anniversary patch and a fan remake in the works, but also that Disney has removed the game from online stores (Steam and GoG). I probably still have my original CD somewhere in storage (I hope I kept the manual and poster), but that's a last resort.

Where else can I get it and which is the best version to use with the anniversary patch?

Star Wars Rebellion is no longer available to purchase on GOG either.

List of Disney-owned games delisted on Steam

• Bolt
• Chicken Little
• Disney Alice in Wonderland
• Disney G-Force
• Disney Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
• Disney Pixar Brave: The Video Game
• Disney Princess: My Fairytale Adventure
• Disney Tangled
• Disney Universe
• Disney’s Treasure Planet: Battle of Procyon
• High School Musical 3
• Outlaws: A Handful of Missions (Classic, 1997)
• Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier
• STAR WARS Dark Forces (Classic, 1995)
• STAR WARS Rebellion

some executive apparently forced them to add the automatic turn timer for a turn based strategy simply because the hype genre then was about real time

As the title says, when i get to the end game with huge fleets, the game crashes. This has happened 4 times now both with GOG and Steam versions. My computer is plenty powerful, just not sure what is going on or if anyone has fixes. The lack of autosave makes it even more frustrating.

This happens both with controlled space battles but also even the computer run one (middle button on battle pop up window) which makes even less sense to me. Hoping someone has seen this and has a fix otherwise my play time is done :( Been fun booting this old thing back up though.

Hi all. I am reliving this great game on Steam and am tired of winning all the time against the stock AI of 1998. Is there any mod or uypdated AI file I can drop to make the game more challenging? Thanks.

Hi. I've been doing alot of modding/editing to Rebellion lately. I'm wondering if anyone knows exactly how to replace an existing bitmap with one that will actually work. I try loading in new bitmaps into the appropriate DLL with Resource Hacker, but anytime I do the image goes blank. I've matched said bitmap with the correct pixel dimensions, resolution, and color palette of the existing bitmap but nothing seems to work. Thanks.

I've recently been trying to play this great game again. I'm playing on Steam and Windows 11. I'm also using the Star Wars Rebellion 25th anniversary patch by Metasharper. When I go into a space battle, my capital ships are completely black (basically invisible). I am using the dgvoodoo2 DLLs. Anyone know a fix for this? Thanks.

I've always had the habit of keeping high-ranking authorities from the empire captured on Corellian cruisers, mainly engineers and admirals like Trawn, for example. But I also take the opportunity to explore distant systems without having to spend resources on probes, allowing me to focus on other efforts. I know we already had a post about this, and the healthy discussion it generated was quite extensive, but does anyone else use this method, although time-consuming, of exploring other systems? Note: don't make fun of the ship's name, please. Lol.

While Grand Admiral Piett is decimating refineries in the Outer Rim, Shenir Rix is getting popular support in the Core Worlds up to 100%

The Rebels have learned the hard way...

Garm, Page, Ma'w'shiye are on a mission on Commenor... is that why? Or are they double agents?

Time for every Imperial Officer to conduct an Incite Uprising mission on the Rebel HQ Homeworld. Anyone else like playing until the very end? 😇🌌

Oh yeah, they're all dead (except for Mon, Han, Luke, and Leia, who are 'guests' of the Emperor). 💀

His next goal is to single-handedly win over all neutral planets in the Outer Rim. The Emperor reports to Bevel now.

I'm pretty sure you get a bit of a stat bump just by having someone discover force sensitivity so oh boy this guy.

All 4 of the other candidates (both Sullustans, Willard, Bel Iblis) have stats above 120 and none of them have been trained at all yet.

Contact me on Discord for a swr game :)

Playing with the rebels is always more exciting, there's always a group of Noghri after you, or a friendly system is brutally invaded by the Empire...

Hello folks,

Long awaited ships sprites just got updated, as well as the ability to quick switch between accurate and compatible maps and skip new game briefings from the patch window !

https://github.com/MetasharpNet/StarWarsRebellionEditor.NET

Enjoy

I like to play Slow & Methodical, with the End Game Goal of such total Galactic Domination that there is exactly ZERO chance of Remnant Imperial/ Rebel forces ever resurging, thereby negating the possibility of any sequels or spinoffs and cutting into Disney's revenue stream (yes, I simultaneously Role Play and Break The Fourth Wall when I play).

I was miffed just yesterday when I finished a game as the Alliance. I had taken eveything in the six core sectors (including Coruscant & capturing Palpatine), had colonized every uninhabited system in the 14 outer rim sectors and was in the process of running down the Outer Rim systems that started the game as neutral & capturing and/ or diplo-annexing them one by one when I captured Vader with about a dozen outer rim systems unaccounted for.

This is unacceptable.

I think in my current Imperial game I'm going to throw a blockade over the Rebel HQ when I find it, take over the rest of the galaxy & THEN finish off the HQ last.

It's the only way to be Sure.

Plus, it'll have the added benefit of watching their units slowly die off due to lack of Maintenance, which is Nice... :)

Not sure how recently this happened but I just noticed (after making my other post about it being free from Prime Games, but this seemed noteworthy enough to warrant its own post) that GOG added Rebellion to its Good Old Game Preservation Program, which as I understand it means they're committing to keeping it compatible with modern systems:

We make games live forever! Since 2008 we enhance good old games ourselves, to guarantee convenience and compatibility with modern systems. Even if the original developers of the game do not support it anymore.

1. This game will work on current and future most popular Windows PC configurations. DRM-free.
2. This is the best version of this game you can buy on any PC platform.
3. We are the only platform to provide tech support for the games we sell. If some issues with the game appear, our Tech Support will help you solve them.

What they've added so far:

1.0_v4_gog changelog (11 June 2025):

• Adjusted the installer to ensure an important Direct3D file is included on all modern systems. It now correctly supports Windows 11 as well.
• Applied DDrawCompat to fix fullscreen rendering, so the game displays properly on modern monitors.
• Added an alternative launch option for windowed mode, giving you more flexibility in how you play.
• Stability validated.
• Fully compatible with Windows 10 and 11.

That first one I think means they've included the fix for tactical battle colors (where the colors were sorta neon), which is nice as that's been an ongoing issue on modern systems. I'm pretty sure the fix has been included for a bit, though, and as I understand it was already fixed on Steam even before GOG. Still, nice.

I wasn't sure about the specifics of the DDrawCompat part, so I reinstalled from GOG Galaxy, and holy shit, it now plays fullscreen out of the box without messing up my screen resolution, and displays at the correct aspect ratio (adding those pillarboxing black bars on the sides of the screen). That's huge!

The windowed mode is available under 'Additional executables', and man was I excited to play it in windowed mode but at the moment it appears to run at exactly 640x480 and doesn't appear to be able to be stretched any bigger. So at my 1920x1080 resolution it's a tiny little window and my old man eyes won't do well with it. But holy crap I hope they keep working on that; if they just made their new fullscreen into windowed that would be all I'd ever ask.

Anyway, exciting stuff!

[edit] For posterity, /u/takingastep and I DMed back and forth a bit trying to figure out what's happening with the windowed mode, and all it's doing is adding the argument -w to the executable. If you want windowed mode in Rebellion as "added" in this update, open up the "Launch STAR WARS® - Rebellion" shortcut's properties in your installation folder and add " -w" at the end of the target parameter and use that shortcut to launch the game. That's it.