Star Wars: The Force Unleashed DLC Diaries (Hoth)

This is my ongoing exploration of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. This time I play the DLC for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed — Hoth.

With the Rebellion on the run after destroying the Death Star, the Empire had tracked them to a secret base on the ice planet Hoth. However, Luke Skywalker knows that he’s running out of time before Starkiller and he have their final confrontation.

Speaking of which, as the Empire staged its attack on the secret base, a special passenger hopped out of one of the AT-ATs and jumped into a crevasse: Starkiller. Captain Keenah called to say that he was my liaison, and assured me that he would meet my strict policy regarding job performance. Since he wasn’t Captain Berrus, my liaison from Tatooine, I could only assume that they were unsatisfactory.

While Keenah was talking, I slaughtered some Wampas in a cave, then Force Pushed some ice out of the way so that I could continue infiltrating Echo Base. However, the rocky outcrops that I was jumping across began crumbling, and Keenah called to apologise for it. Apparently, the AT-ATs were causing it, and they overlooked this potential issue while plotting this route that I was taking. So I Force Choked him, because he had failed me for the last time.

After the crumbling platforms — made more perilous by attacking Wampas — I was contacted by Lieutenant Marsen who was my new liaison. The next chamber had a handful of automated turrets that required destroying before I could access a side cavern where an energy supply was powering a forcefield. However, disabling that allowed some Rebels to come out to greet me with their blasters. But, at least I was now inside the base.

More soldiers came to die, when suddenly a wall burst open and a Wampa jumped inside! The Empire wasn’t the only thing attacking, it seemed. The hallway led into a chamber, with another door with a forcefield ahead of me, and some Wampa and Rebels fighting to the left. I hopped on down to kill everything, then shoved a crate inside the dynamo powering the forcefield. Following the hallway, I killed more Rebels and invading Wampa, then Forced open a door.

However, with no way forward, I noticed the floor below me was ice, so I destroyed it and dropped down. Honestly, the place was a mess and I couldn’t work out if it was because we were attacking them, or they were just very bad at this. I saw no evidence of Imperial forces as I slaughtered the Rebel soldiers in the large, circular room, just saying. It did have some lovely, large windows allowing me to see the AT-ATs, though.

The Rebels may have been attempting to foil my way up, as in the centre of the room was a partially destroyed elevator. However, thanks to The Force I was able to just use it to jump up to the next level. As I did, one of the Imperial Walkers destroyed a power station, and more Rebels joined me on the upper level. Once the coast was clear, I Forced open a door and found more people to kill!

At the end of the hallway, I entered a large room to stand face-to-face with the son of Darth Vader — not that Luke was having any of it. He attacked me but I quite easily managed to gain the upper hand, and rather than allow me to kill him he freed some Wampas and scarpered.

Marsen called to remind me that the Emperor wanted Skywalker captured, as I fought the trio of Wampa, then gave chase. After a hallway of Rebels I entered a control room that had a whole bunch of them inside! Coming to my aid, however, were a couple of squads of Imperials, exploding through a wall! We killed the Rebels, and sure I killed some Imperials too, before I left through one of their tunnels and Forced a door. Seeing no other route, I pulled a contraption out of a hole in the wall, and jumped inside. There was a lot of electricity inside, so I had to destroy some tubes before dropping down into a hallway battle, currently in progress.

After killing Rebels from both sides, we were attacked by Wampa! It was proving to be a hassle, not gonna lie. A little bit of the work was done for me when part of the next hallway collapsed on top of some Wampa and Rebels, though that did require me to make a minor detour. Entering the hangar bay, I was assaulted by a large amount of blaster fire, while the Millennium Falcon waited behind a forcefield, apparently with Princess Leia aboard.

Luckily for me, there were many missiles just laying around and attached to X-Wings, so I had lots to throw at people. Eventually, I was joined by Imperial forces which alleviated some of the burden of murdering everyone. It also allowed me to shove a couple of Snowspeeders into the dynamos which generated the forcefield. Okay, so I also tossed in a few Rebels for funsies.

The forcefield dropped, but that caused some large doors to close. Using The Force to open them, I was blindsided by Luke Skywalker, who wanted to go for another round! I slapped him around a little, before he decided to embrace the Dark Side, starting to have a red aura and utilise Force Lightning! However, it still wasn’t enough to beat me, and I sliced off his hand!

As I raised my lightsaber to land the final blow, the Millennium Falcon flew over us! I grabbed it with The Force, telling Skywalker that he had to embrace the Dark Side fully — it was the only way to save his friends. He struck out and the Falcon escaped, but I blew him back and laughed. He had joined the Dark Side willingly, so he was now my apprentice…

FINAL THOUGHTS

A decent DLC, and as far as the storyline goes it ends the first game on a high now. However, I didn’t enjoy it as much as Tatooine, probably because it was all enclosed tunnels, apart from a few caves. Sure, the majority of Tatooine had tunnels too, but the start was great, and the final battles were fantastic fun.

There was nothing particularly wrong with the Skywalker fight, it just didn’t feel as satisfying as the Obi-Wan battle did. Overall it’s a fun time and well worth a look when you get around to it. Honestly, I just expected the DLC to be more challenges, but it turns out that I clearly misread something!

Join me next time for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II DLC Diaries (Endor)!