peace in the galaxy. Eight
years have passed since
the Empire's defeat at the
Battle of Endor, but
the New Republic still
struggles to restore order
and vanquish its enemies.
After defending the Valley
of the Jedi from the evil
Jerec and nearly falling
to the dark side himself,
former Jedi Knight Kyle
Katarn has severed his
connection with the Force
and returned to his
mercenary ways. With his
longtime partner, Jan Ors,
Kyle continues to aid
the Republic in the fight
against the Imperial
Remnant.
As the Remnant launches
its latest gambit to regain
control of the galaxy, Kyle
and Jan have been sent
by the New Republic
to investigate the planet
Kejim, home to a long-
dead Imperial outpost...
Star Wars: Jedi Knight II – Jedi Outcast is a 2002 continuation of the Dark Forces Saga, though notice the lack of "Dark Forces" in the title.
Following the events of Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II and especially its expansion Mysteries of the Sith, Kyle Katarn has decided to hang up his lightsaber and sworn off his connection to the Force, instead returning to his old job of bounty-hunting as a New Republic mercenary agent alongside Jan Ors.
While on a routine mission to investigate a supposedly-abandoned Imperial outpost, Kyle and Jan stumble onto a conspiracy involving the Imperial scientist Galak Fyyar, an ambitious Chistori named Desann, a former student of Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy that has fallen to the Dark Side, and mysterious crystals that can artificially imbue the holder with a degree of control of the Force. Kyle soon comes to realize that he may once again have to walk the path of the Jedi if he wishes to stand a chance of getting to the bottom of all of it.
Originally released for PC in March 2002, ports to macOS X, the Nintendo GameCube, and the Xbox followed in November. Much later, in September 2019, it was ported to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. Followed in 2003 by Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, which also has a popular Game Mod which ports
Outcast into Academy's engine.
The game contains examples of following tropes:
- Achievement Mockery: In the PS4 port, you get an achievement for beating a level with cheat codes called "Embrace the Dark Side!"
- A.I. Breaker: The A.I. is designed so that you're supposed to need to use a lightsaber to defeat any Force user more powerful than the very weakest Reborn rank, as they're capable of deflecting your projectiles with their lightsaber and reflecting explosives with Force push. However, the A.I. cannot do either of these things while they're throwing their lightsaber or when they're knocked on the ground (i.e. from being Force Pushed or jumped on), which allows you to shoot them during these times.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When at the mercy of Kyle, Tavion, in a tone of voice close to tears, confesses that Jan is still alive and admits to not being brave enough to die.
- Air-Aided Acrobatics: In the first Bespin level, you have to take advantage of sudden wind surges to jump on a series of tall platforms. After killing your first Reborn on the top, you have to jump across the room riding a jet of steam.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Stormtroopers have a pretty poor reputation to begin with (terrible aim, being defeated by walking teddy bears, etc.) but it's surprisingly easy to feel sorry for them. It's not uncommon, when sneaking around, to hear them chatting with one another about various things, such as how hard it is to see out of their helmets, griping about higher ranking officers berating them, or even chatting about their new T-16's. In other words, ordinary guys just passing the time. And then you come in with your fancy lightsaber, and it's pretty easy to feel sorry for them as they get cut down left and right (their screams of complete and utter terror as they get cut down, or hurled off a high ledge certainly doesn't help). If you're feeling merciful (or a little guilty), you can disarm the troopers by force choking them, grabbing their weapons, and leaving them to run around harmlessly (they may even raise their hands in surrender if you get close enough).
- Always Over the Shoulder: Once you get your lightsaber, the singleplayer defaults to this, while the multiplayer doesn't even allow the player in first-person mode while using the lightsaber.
- Angrish: When Kyle interrupts Admiral Fyarr's monologuing by destroying the shield generator, Fyarr is so enraged that he just lets out a loud "Raaargh!", before closing the helmet on his Powered Armor and beginning the boss fight.
- An Arm and a Leg: Even without making use of cheats to enable full dismemberment, the game occasionally allows you to take off a hand or an arm.
- Arc Welding: Bizarrely, the "Empire Reborn" in this game is the very same Imperial Remnant faction as the one led by Lord Hethrir in The Crystal Star (and supplemental material confirms that Kyle's actions in this game severely weakened them, forcing Hethrir to resort to the plan he used in that book). Apparently, the oft-maligned book's only fan was a member of the writing team.
- Artificial Stupidity: The stormtroopers are pretty stupid in general, and Dark Jedi will occasionally gleefully jump into a Bottomless Pit to dodge lightsaber attacks.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- Many of the more flashy acrobatic moves, despite looking rather cool, aren't actually all that useful.
- The supposedly defensive Fast lightsaber style, which was fixed for the sequel so that it allows you to spin around trading really fast blows with a lightsaber-wielding enemy, here only makes you take hits all the time if you try to do the same thing.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Kyle and Luke do it late in the game, on level 14 (the first Cairn Installation level) while taking on a batch of Reborn.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Kyle uses Force Grip and Force Lightning. In fact, one of the themes of this game and its sequel Jedi Academy is that no power is inherently good or evil; it's how it's used that makes it so. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that your power growth in this game's singleplayer is entirely dependent on story progression, and you learn powers from both sides. Somewhat of a
Broken Aesop in gameplay though, as the powers are still specifically categorized as "Light Side" or "Dark Side", and multiplayer explicitly splits the two, forcing you to choose between light or dark powers. - Balance Buff: Many of the returning weapons are vastly improved from Jedi Knight.
- The Bryar Pistol and Bowcaster have faster rates of fire. In addition to this, the Bryar Pistol is given a Charged Attack.
- The Stormtrooper Rifle now has a least some kind of accuracy and only takes one unit of ammo per shot with its primary fire now, but you can still use the old spray and pray with increased ammo consumption as a secondary fire mode.
- The blast radius from Thermal Detonators has increased.
- The lightsaber, while more of a complementary weapon in Jedi Knight that was mostly used for Boss Battles, will pretty much be everyone's primary weapon for the rest of the game. It helps that Force Jump has been incorporated into the standard jump key and that its secondary fire mode is now the Saber Throw power instead of the mostly-useless wide swing. Even walking up to someone with the saber ignited will damage them.
- Zig-zagged with the Heavy Repeater. It's less accurate than Jedi Knight's Imperial Repeater Rifle, but is a lot more devastating up close and comes with a concussion launcher as its Secondary Fire.
- Accidentally enforced on some console versions (most notably the GameCube version) where controller aim-assist simply negates any kind of spray pattern. This also happens on other very powerful close-range weapons such as the flechette launcher, making it now viable for long-range encounters.
- Batman Gambit: Desann manipulates Kyle quite handily near the beginning. He lets him try to beat him without Jedi abilities to show how impossible it is, and apparently kills his girlfriend, all just to make him return to the Valley of the Jedi to regain his powers for purposes of revenge so that Desann can follow him there. May double with Xanatos Gambit as Jan herself knows the location of the Valley so it might be conceivable that Desann would coerce her into disclosing it to him should Kyle fail to fall for his bait.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Desann provides the Force know-how and Fyyar brings the military might to the table. It's not the first time an ambitious Imperial officer has teamed up with a Dark Jedi to crush the New Republic and the Jedi Order.
- Blown Across the Room: Stormtroopers have a habit of flying backwards and head over heels when shot. The Force Push power can be used to shove enemies off their feet and over ledges.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Subverted with Desann. Despite having Kyle and Jan disarmed and helpless on Artus Prime, he only decides to have Tavion kill Jan, sparing Kyle, who he just admitted has a reputation as the man who single-handedly killed Jerec and his Dark Jedi and saved the Valley of the Jedi. Then it turns out he has a good reason not to kill either Kyle or Jan; he wants Kyle to be consumed by anger at Jan's apparent death and return to the Valley to reclaim his Force powers, leading Desann right to it. Should Kyle fail, he wants to keep Jan alive as a backup, since she is the only other one who knows where the Valley is. Even after Kyle leads him to the Valley, Desann still keeps Jan alive in order to question her about the Jedi Academy, so he could complete his final plan of wiping out the Jedi. As for Kyle, Desann never gets him at his mercy again.
- Bonus Stage: The Pit, used as the demo, featured a non-canonical battle to the death against Tavion in an inescapable pit arena.
- Boom, Headshot!: Headshots do extra damage and will often result in an instant kill. Force Speed and Force Sense make it much easier to score them, even with the notoriously inaccurate Imperial blaster.
- Boss in Mook's Clothing:
- While low-level Reborn (orange and blue ones) can be killed with explosives, all those with higher ranks from red onward tend to be deadly opponents if underestimated, especially if they get the drop on you while you don't have your lightsaber on. Shadowtroopers are even stronger, especially with their ability to turn invisible at will.
- Imperial Walker Droids are surprisingly fast, can soak a lot of punishment unless you're using an explosive or anti-droid weapon and can deal huge damage to Kyle even on the lowest difficulty level.
- Broken Armor Boss Battle: Galak Fyyar has a shield emitter on his head, and neither the emitter nor Galak can be damaged unless you temporarily bring the shield down.
- Bulletproof Human Shield: Level 3 Force Grip allows you to use enemies as shields.
- Can't Stay Normal: After his brushes with the Dark Side in Jedi Knight and Mysteries of the Sith, Kyle gave up his lightsaber and the Force, resuming life as a Private Military Contractor (who only works with the New Republic, though it's stated in supplementary material he's strangely more brutal in dealing with the Remnant nowadays), only to come back to it in this game after certain plot developments.
- Cargo Concealment Caper: In the bonus level "Mission to Alzoc III", Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors infiltrate a suspected Imperial Remnant base on Alzoc III this way — Jan poses as a cargo hauler, dropping a couple of supply crates off in front of the base to be taken inside, and once she's out of the way Kyle emerges from one of the crates to fight off the stormtrooper guards and confirm the place is a Remnant base before making his way to the hanger on the far side of the building so he can meet up with Jan again and they can escape the planet.
- Caught Monologuing: Fyyar gets so caught up in his Dramatic Speech that Katarn is able to destroy the shield generator he was guarding while he's yapping.
- Charged Attack: The Bryar pistol's secondary fire, taking up five shots to deal greatly increased damage.
- Cheat Code:
- The famous g_saberrealisticcombat, which makes lightsabers kill and dismember on every hit. Not as much of a gamebreaker as you'd think, since enemy force users get the same benefit against you. It's also a normal option in multiplayer matches, the cheat just enables it for singleplayer.
- The PS4 port allows for cheats by entering a code on the pause screen. Doing so disables most of the trophies, but there's a still a trophy for completing a level with cheats.
- Checkpoint Starvation: There are checkpoints scattered around levels but there really seems to be no pattern to their placement: sometimes they precede a big fight or an otherwise challenging section but most of the time, they don't appear at all except the very beginning of a particular stage. Only a minor inconvenience since the game allows the player to save anytime they like, although the fact that each time you die you need to press the quickload button rather than fire, as the latter will bring you back to the last and, most likely, useless checkpoint, can get a bit annoying.
- Collapsing Ceiling Boss: Inverted. Despite Desann's difficulty as a boss, the fight can be ended instantaneously by hacking through one of the three stone pillars around the arena. If the collapsing pillar falls on Desann, he dies instantly.
- Color-Coded Wizardry: Desann's Reborn adhere to this trope. Orange Reborn can only make use of Force Speed and otherwise rely on lightsaber combat; blue ones add on Force Jump to stay mobile as they duel you; red prefer using Force powers to attack you; green are more proficient with lightsabers and can still use Force powers; and red over blue are the strongest. The black armored, lightsaber-resistant Shadowtroopers are the most dangerous of them all.
- Combat Pragmatist: Despite the flashy moves available, the simplest and most straightforward thing to do is knock enemies over with a push, and stab them when they try to get up. If you are in a level like Bespin that has a lot of high areas or pits, it's even easier (not to mention cruelly amusing) to simply pick them up with Grip and drop them over the side.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
- Tavion is insanely hard to beat, mostly due to the fact that every once in a while she likes to perform an unblockable combo that kills you. In other words, whenever she resorts to that particular trick, you're screwed.
- Desann takes this to a whole new level in the final duel. Not only does he have his own unique saber style that does as much damage as the Strong style (killing you in just 2 or 3 hits on medium difficulty) and is as fast as the Medium style, but his Force powers are insanely stronger than any other NPC in the series, most notably his nearly unbreakable Force Choke. Justified because he got himself empowered at the Valley of the Jedi; in the previous game, it was the villain's whole plan to do the same thing in order to become invincible and take over the galaxy.
- If you use console cheats and set your Jedi Mind Trick to level 4 you can mind control Desann to see how broken he really is. He'll block blaster fire and Force push stuff like rockets back at opponents automatically, and some times he'll Force choke or push/pull enemies on his own without you even inputting any commands. Hell, try mind controlling him and spawning five or ten high-level Jedi enemies and see how easily you turn them all into Jedi sandwich spread.
- Continuity Nod:
- Kyle comes across prototypes for black cortosis armor (capable of resisting lightsabers) to be used by shadowtroopers. He replies, "Black armor...not again." referring to the Dark Troopers of the first game.
- The Massassi Temple Rebel base from A New Hope, now serving as Luke's Jedi Academy, can be explored, with access to the X-Wing hangar, control center and throne room (the latter now Luke's office/training chamber/whatever).
- Upon Kyle arrives in Nar Shadaa, the Epic Tracking Shot from Jedi Knight is repeated.
- Covert Group with Mundane Front: Reelo Baruk pretends to be a "respected waste disposal manager", and uses it as a front for his criminal activities.
- Cutscene Incompetence: While Kyle is searching for the Doomgiver, he'll somehow be captured if someone hits the alarm despite having slaughtered his way through half the station just to get there. To make this worse, the cinematic of Kyle in his cell shows him being held hostage by a handful of troops, which he could easily take on bare-handed at this point in the game. Somewhat subverted in that someone has to physically reach the alarm after finding you to set off the alarm, meaning that it's easy to plant yourself between it and anyone who might try.
- Dark Action Girl: Tavion, Desann's apprentice and a Dark Jedi in her own right, who's incredibly skilled with both the Force and her lightsaber.
- Dirty Coward: Tavion, who begs for her life after being defeated and runs off, not appearing again for the rest of the game.
- Disintegrator Ray: The disruptor rifle does this when fully powered up. It's actually banned in-universe for this reason, which is why you don't get it until criminals start dropping it on Nar Shaddaa.
- Disney Death: Jan Ors, as part of a Batman Gambit on Desann's part to get Kyle to reveal the location of the Valley.
- Doesn't Trust Those Guys: The famous "Never trust a bartender with bad grammar."
- Early Game Hell: The opening levels, before you gain your lightsaber and Force powers, are some of the hardest in the series.
- Easter Egg: Using cheats allows to get some powers or weapons unavailable through normal play. In particular there's the level 4 Mind Trick, which lets you directly control enemies. It's incredibly glitchy, but still has its moments of hilarity (such as jumping Reborn off cliffs, or shooting stormtroopers in the back with rocket launchers).
- Easy Level Trick: Two of the three major bosses have workarounds that can be exploited for a quick kill.
- Admiral Fyyar comes at you with Powered Armor and a personal shield that makes fighting him up close with a lightsaber like you've been doing with most enemies to be a difficult prospect. However, using the Heavy Repeater's secondary fire to break down his shield and them riddling him with its primary fire will make quick work of him.
- Using Force Speed and the fast lightsaber style will take care of Desann in no time. Note that this tactic does not work against Tavion, as she will cast Force Speed whenever Kyle does, essentially negating its advantage.
- At one point, on the way to the Doomgiver, you have to cross a huge circular abyss, using a specially-made platform running around the area, which get demolished halfway through by two troopers with rocket launchers, forcing you to complete the journey by jumping across the railing used by the platform as the two soldiers shoot at you... but it's possible, with some timing, to make it across the whole way without using the platform as intended: while slightly riskier, the two rocket-launcher soldiers won't spawn at all, granting a safe crossing.
- Many of the early Reborn encounters can be almost skipped by tossing a well aimed Thermal Detonator (or using the heavy fire of Imperial Repeaters) at them, as they lack the ability to push them back. Stronger Reborns though will send the explosive back at Kyle.
- The very first part of the stealth mission has you starting in front of the alarm system the soldiers use if they spot you... and nothing prevents you from staying there and murdering all the soldiers as they run towards the switch.
- The final battle of Nar Shaddaa has you manning a turret to shoot some enemies from out of a ship. It can be very hard on maximum difficulty... however, you can, with properly timed sped-up move, get the doors to be stuck open and take the enemies out the usual way, with the ship taking no damage until you actually man the turret.
- Enemy Chatter: First example of this:Trooper A: This is my last day on this shift.
Trooper B: Oh yeah, where you moving?
Trooper A: Sector 7 had an opening, so I applied.
Trooper B: Not bad, should be a quiet last day. - Emergency Weapon: A stun baton serves this role for the Kejim and Artus Prime levels, before it's straight-up replaced with the lightsaber once you get it back.
- Enemy Civil War: In one case the second level, some turrets in one room appear to be programmed to kill stormtroopers, as well as the player, this might have been because it was probably a training area for reasons unknown.
- Epic Launch Sequence: Galak Fyyar's dreadnought, the Doomgiver, gets a villainous version as it sets off from Cairn Station, scored to the Imperial March.
- Escort Mission: Occurs a few times:
- In the first mission, Jan either manages to hold her own (although she can die, especially if you hide behind her instead of taking the lead), or the enemies are all too busy focusing on you, though at one point, you leave her behind and have to rush back to rescue her.
- The second of these is somewhat novel, in that you get the commander of an Imperial prison from Point A to Point B by pointing your gun at him. You have to save him once from the level-specific crab-things, and after he's done what you want at Point B, he summons some stormtroopers and starts shooting at you.
- In Nar Shaddaa, you are accompanied by Lando, but resistance towards him after you split up is minimal. However, at a later point, he ends up getting pinned down by a Weak Turret Gun and you have to save him. Later in the mission, you have to fight off a couple waves of attackers coming for Lando's Lady Luck, and even that is easy with application of the Force Speed power.
- The last scenario involves escorting what has to be the dumbest droid in the quadrant through the streets of Cloud City. Killing the snipers who want to destroy the droid, destroying laser mines before the droid barrels through them, and otherwise moving heaven and earth to prevent the destruction of said droid is a rather grueling task. Hint: Force Push and Pull work on the droid, and will make your job a lot easier, as will just holding it against the wall while sniping the early mines and enemies.
- Evil Gloating: Fyyar goes off on a monologue lacking only maniacal laughter. Kyle interrupts to provoke the boss battle and finish the mission.
- Evil Is Hammy: Admiral Fyyar is slightly more low-key until his hammy villainous rant.
- Evil Laugh: Galak was interrupted before he could, but Desann more than makes up for it.
- Fake Kill Scare: This is how Desann tricked Kyle Katarn into leading him to the valley of the Jedi. In retrospect, this was a very bad idea.
- First-Person Ghost: As typical for shooters of the era, where Kyle's body is fully depicted and animated in third-person, but in first-person you only ever see your arms. Interestingly, this was the last game in the Dark Forces saga to try to avert this when using the lightsaber in first-person — presumably because they did a really half-assed job with it, as first-person with the lightsaber simply shows half of Kyle's arms, fading out just past the elbows, on the third-person animations. Multiplayer doesn't even let you use the lightsaber in first-person.
- Foreshadowing: During the escape level on Artus Prime, Kyle can interact with some docked AT-ST, commenting that he cannot seem to get them open. Later on Yavin, you can find an unlocked AT-ST to ride in battle.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- The personal energy shield that Kyle uses seems to fall under this, though it is referenced in other Star Wars materials. Oddly enough, Lando has one himself, but it only seems to be at 50% capacity. Jaden Korr in Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy and Mara Jade in Mysteries of the Sith are the only other ones ever seen using personal shields.
- Force Grip, when first learned at the start of level 12, only lets Kyle temporarily paralyze an enemy; he can't lift them until the rank 2 upgrade (learned at the start of level 15) and can't move them around freely until reaching rank 3 (learned at the start of level 20). Yet in the cutscene at the end of level 13, after winning his boss fight with Tavion, Kyle freely uses Grip with its rank 3 capabilities, lifting Tavion and holding her over the edge of the platform, then throwing her to the ground afterward.
- Goomba Stomp: It's actually a useful tactic to Force Jump onto most humanoid enemies, including Reborn, as this will knock them down and leave them open to your lightsaber.
- Gory Discretion Shot: When Tavion, on Desann's orders, seemingly kills Jan Ors. Tavion later reveals the truth, questioning Kyle's insistence that he "saw her die" with "What did you really see? What did you really hear?"
- Guide Dang It!: Several levels and puzzles are quite difficult to figure out:
- The communication puzzle aboard the Doomgiver is probably the most infamous example. Unless one pays close attention, chances are they won't notice the slight change of color of the button they just pressed, mostly due to the fact that it is accompanied by a distinct error-like reaction sound, suggesting that the button remains deactivated (whereas in fact it doesn't).
- To some extent, Galak Fyyar's Boss Fight also counts. As long as he keeps the force field around his body up, he is invulnerable to all sorts of attack. The only part of his armor that is not protected by the force field is the small and temptingly red field emitter itself. Most gamers would instinctively assume they need to target that particular spot in order to turn the field off and they would be reinforced in that conviction by the presence of a set of ramps enabling them to target the emitter easier. In fact, the trick is to attack the very field while maintaining a safe enough distance so as not to get electrocuted (which will happen if you get just an inch closer to him). It doesn't help that the game gives you no indication that slashing at the force field is the least bit efficient until you actually get it down (which will take around five hits, after which you'll be given around ten seconds to indiscriminately throw whatever you got at Fyyar before he brings the field back up and you'll need to repeat the cycle at least a few more times to beat him for good — or do, in fact, destroy the now vulnerable emitter to stop the field from regenerating). He's also the only Boss Battle where gunplay is a viable tactic. Using the Heavy Repeater's Secondary Fire to bring his shields down and then using primary fire to chew through his Powered Armor is a good strategy, especially since there's plenty of cover.
- Hand Cannon: Zig-Zagged with the Bryar Pistol. Considered as one in Legends, it remains a base weapon with relatively low damage. However, the secondary fire will often one-shot enemies and even make them backflip spectacularly if the killing blow is a headshot.
- The Hero Doesn't Kill the Villainess: Kyle Katarn spares Tavion, Desann's female apprentice, but kills Desann. Played with, in that Kyle, still mad with grief over Jan's apparent death, actually seems more willing to kill Tavion (sparing her out of frustration and disgust), but having since learned Jan was actually alive and even rescued her, genuinely offers clemency to Desann before Desann makes it clear he's not going to surrender. This bites Kyle in the ass in Jedi Academy when Tavion becomes the leader of a new Dark Jedi cult.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Desann, early on when you only have your blasters. You could try explosives instead, but he will immediately use Force Push to send them back at you.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Padawan (easy), Jedi (normal), Jedi Knight (hard), Jedi Master (very hard).
- Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Retrieving your lightsaber involves a combination of depressing a switch, using Force speed, and Force-pulling it to you, even though the gaps in the bars are huge and Kyle could realistically just reach in and grab it — or use the Force to pull it out between them, if not switch it on and cut the bars away.
- I Shall Taunt You: Force users like doing this.
- Just Toying with Them: When Desann challenges a de-powered Kyle to a fight. Even his attacks mostly consist of simply pushing and pulling you to and fro repeatedly; he mostly just stands there and lets you try to hurt him. If you're aggressive enough most of the damage he does will probably be from your own reflected blaster shots.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: One of the most effective ways of dealing with enemies is to push them over and hit them before they get up.
- Last Disc Magic: Level 3 Force Grip and Force Lightning are gained quite late on. Level 3 Saber Throw takes the cake, giving you only a single level to get any real use out of it, and even then, most of the enemies wield lightsabers.
- Last Villain Stand: Desann still chooses to duke it out with Katarn, even after he loses his entire fleet and most of his strike troops are wiped out by the Jedi.
- Later-Installment Weirdness: Unlike the previous games, this is the only entry in the Dark Forces series without monster enemies (such as Dianogas, Mailocs, Kell Dragons or Drugons), except for the tiny mine pests on Artus Prime. The following game does feature Wampas and Rancors.
- Magikarp Power:
- Most of the Force Powers are like this, but Force Lightning is the most notable. At level 1, it fires a single weak bolt that can barely even hit, let alone kill a single stormtrooper using your entire Force bar. Level 2 is a bit better but you'd still be better just running up and hitting them. At level 3, it fires a massive arc of lightning that can wipe out an entire roomful of stormtroopers in a second or two. It also sends them flying. You can even pin them against walls by maintaining the attack.
- Similarly, Force Choke's first level is mostly useless, since it can only stun an enemy and not even harm them. Its second level can damage someone, but leaves you vulnerable. Max-level Force Choke allows you to slam every non-Force user enemy in the game off of the ceiling and floor, and makes even Force users ludicrously easy to kill if there's a bottomless pit or lava pool nearby.
- Mook–Face Turn: The temporary effect of a third level Jedi Mind Trick. Essentially Set a Mook to Kill a Mook in the end.
- Never-Forgotten Skill: Outcast is set about 7 years after Jedi Knight and Kyle Katarn has deliberately severed his connection to the Force since the events of Mysteries of the Sith. However, judging from the way he uses his lightsaber and the speed of regaining his Force abilities, he clearly didn't forget how to use them. It helps that he regains his connection to the Force by tapping into the power of the Valley of the Jedi.
- No Body Left Behind:
- Charging up the Disruptor rife before shooting will completely disintegrate a target, no matter where they're hit — be it the head, the torso or even a leg.
- When Admiral Fyyar dies, his armor blows up and vaporizes him.
- No Fair Cheating: Using cheat codes in the PS4 port will disable achievements, save for "Embrace the Dark Side!", which is unlocked by completing a level with cheats.
- Only in It for the Money: Reelo Baruk.Kyle: What's a respectable gangster like you doing mixed up with a Remnant slime like Desann?
Reelo: Making money, of course. Yah-hah-hah-haaaaa! - Powered Armor: Admiral Fyyar fights Kyle wearing a large suit of powered armor as a boss battle about 3/4ths of the way through the game.
- Precision F-Strike: Luke, of all people, drops a quiet "Damn" in one of the latter levels after learning that the villains are stockpiling a rare mineral that can deflect lightsabers.Luke: Damn. That's not good.
- Replay Mode: The game includes a replay feature to rewatch cutscenes from the main campaign.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Jan is "killed" on Desann's orders, about half the entire portion of the game where you have a lightsaber was fueled by a need for revenge... and about half of the remaining game is still simmering anger, as you're not certain.
- Rush Boss: In the final battle, Desann is incredibly powerful and can kill you in just 2 to 3 hits, as well as having access to overpowered Force abilities way more powerful than anyone else in the game, including yourself, can use. However, on Normal difficulty, he himself can be killed in just a few solid hits with the Strong saber style. The final duel usually ends really quickly, one way or the other, unless you prolong the fight by constantly using the Force energy beam in the center of the room to temporarily turn yourself invincible.
- Same Story, Different Names: The game's plot takes a lot of cues from the series' two previous installments. The early levels follow the same investigation-like premise from the first game (trace the origin of this strange metal/crystal) and towards the end, Jedi Outcast is structured just like Dark Forces: go to Fuel Station Ergo/Bespin in order to sneak into a heavily fortified Imperial facility (the Executor/Cairn Installation), from which you can get to Big Bad's unique factory/carrier vessel (the Arc Hammer/Doomgiver). Once there you fight Mohc/Fyyar in his Powered Armour. The "Force" side of the plot once again involves you foiling a Dark Jedi and his followers (Jerec and his Dark Jedi/Desann and Tavion) who wants to take control of the Valley of the Jedi. And because (for plot reasons) Kyle has lost his Force abilities and must learn them from scratch, the game has the same structure, starting as a shooter before expanding into Jedi powers.
- Savage Spiked Weapons: Desann's lightsaber hilt has a form of spiked mace. While he never uses the pommel as an impromptu club, it suits his strength-obsessed personality and philosophy quite nicely.
- Scare Chord: Dying in this game and Jedi Academy produces the same drum hit when the Stormtroopers searching the Millennium Falcon are blasted in A New Hope.
- Schizophrenic Difficulty: The game pretty much leaves its early hell once you make it to Bespin (when you're given one of the most precious Force powers that is Healing). The stages that come afterwards are mostly a breeze to get through... that is except for the three boss fights, each of which is likely to occupy you for quite a few dozen tries, and an infamous stealth mission.
- Second Hour Superpower: The game initially starts out like a shooter, but a few levels in, and you're a Jedi.
- Sequel Hook: Tavion was supposed to die in Jedi Outcast, but was kept alive to continue on to the next game.
- Sequel Non-Entity: Mara Jade isn't mentioned at all in this game despite being a playable character previously. Other material explains that she was busy with the Smuggler's Alliance during this time.
- Shock and Awe: Lightning is one of the few Dark Side powers Kyle retains, alongside Choke. Of course, high-level Reborn, Tavion and Desann are proficient in this power as well.
- Shock Stick: Until Kyle recovers his lightsaber, his melee weapon is a Stun Baton which puts out a paralyzing electrical shock on contact with an enemy.
- Shout-Out:
- Simple, yet Awesome: The first few levels are a fairly standard FPS. Once you get your lightsaber, however, you'll never use anything else, with the possible exception of the disruptor for sniping. And you won't want to, either.
- Situational Sword: The Disruptor Rifle's main strength is sniping, as its primary fire mode is nothing special. Later you can also get your hands on a special gun meant to deal massive damage to walkers and droids, which can take down even an AT-ST with a few well-aimed shots... but is next to useless against all else.
- Soft Water: Played straight in the "Bespin Streets" level, in which a fall from a height that would normally hurt Kyle is made harmless by a shallow pool of water.
- Stance System: Jedi Outcast features three styles of lightsaber combat for Kyle Katarn to master:
- The "Strong" style features the Darth Vader-esque slow but extremely powerful strikes which cannot be used in a combo. With a careful aim, it can knock over an enemy and finish off even an Elite Mook in a single blow. It does leave you open to faster enemies, however, especially to blaster fire.
- The "Fast" style is great for dispatching lightly armoured targets, with the ability to make combos of indefinite length, and its small strikes keep you covered when under blaster fire. It's also good at overwhelming some lightsaber-wielders with rapid strikes (think Luke in the final duel against Vader).
- And the "Medium" style is a balance between the two, able to chain at maximum five attacks into a combo. It doesn't suffer any particular disadvantage and will fit most situations, the only weakness being that it'll take a long while to chip through tough opponents.
- Stealth-Based Mission: There is a long and mostly tedious one on the Cairn station. You need to make your way through a bunch of warehouses and landing pads because Kyle figures that the enemies are way too numerous to deal with the hard way (which is not true at all).
- Strange-Syntax Speaker: The Chiss bartender Baldarek on Nar Shaddaa has problems speaking Basic and constantly confuses singular and plural nouns. This is a nod to the Expanded Universe, in that Chiss don't normally speak Basic. The native Chiss language is called Cheunh, which is all but impossible for humans to speak because Chiss have mutated vocal chords. Also, living on Nar Shaddaa, it's entirely likely Baldarek is more fluent in Huttese than he is in Basic.Baldarek: (with Kyle holding a lightsaber to his face) Please! Noble Jedis! Not in the faces!
- Talking Is a Free Action: Averted and even played for laughs. Fyyar shows up to defend his shield generator and takes so long monologuing about his inevitable victory that Kyle destroys it while he's distracted, partly just to shut him up.
- Tempting Fate: A stormtrooper Mook on Cairn is told off for this by his comrade when he states that they won't see any combat on their current posting. Cue the part where you slice through the grate with your saber.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: You can space several squads of poor Mooks while on the Doomgiver.
- Torture Is Ineffective: Jan is subjected to quite a bit of it during her stay on the Doomgiver. It doesn't break her as well as it doesn't seem to distort her condition, snarkiness or physical attractiveness in the slightest.
- Two-Keyed Lock: Doomgiver's brig has a set of doors that require two people to get through. Of course, why the Imperials would design their ships with such a system is anyone's guess. Then again, these are the same ship designers who brought you that ridiculous comm system...
- Unique Enemy:
- Reelo Baruk, who mans a turret at the end of the Nar Shaddaa starport mission. Despite being a named villain, he only has slightly more health than the regular Mooks with him.
- TIE Fighter Pilots aboard the Doomgiver, and Swamptroopers in the swamps on Yavin 4.
- Not an enemy, but for some reason Lando is the only NPC in the entire series to also use a personal deflector shield just like the player character.
- Wham Line: "On second thought, Tavion... kill her."
- You Talk Too Much!:
- When Tavion begins a long bit of Evil Gloating about how her and Desann having used Kyle as an Unwitting Pawn all along, Kyle quickly decides that he has absolutely no patience for it:Kyle: (brimming with fury as he turns on his lightsaber) Stop... TALKING!
- Kyle later offers an implied version when he cuts off Fyyar's grandiose monologuing by destroying the Doomgiver's shield generator mid-rant.
- When Tavion begins a long bit of Evil Gloating about how her and Desann having used Kyle as an Unwitting Pawn all along, Kyle quickly decides that he has absolutely no patience for it:
