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Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II cover
Developers
LucasArts
Windows Aspyr Media
Publishers
LucasArts
Disney Interactive Studios
Russia 1C Company
Engines
Ronin 2.0[1]
Release dates
Windows October 26, 2010
Reception
Metacritic 59
IGDB 65
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Hack and slash
Themes Sci-fi
Series Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II on HowLongToBeat
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II on IGDB
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II guide on StrategyWiki
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II on MobyGames
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II on Wikipedia
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Subseries of Star Wars
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2009
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II 2010

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is a third-person hack and slash game in the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed series.

A sequel to The Force Unleashed, it was ported to PC by Aspyr and released alongside the console versions on October 26, 2010.

Like the first game, it's capped at 30 FPS with physics issues arising at higher framerates (see this section for the fix). However, none of the console DLC was ever brought to PC, but it's possible to access most of it (the exceptions being the Endor and Character Pack DLCs) by modifying the game files (see Pre-order and Collector's Edition content for a guide).

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SecuROM 7.42.0004 DRM. European copies use SecuROM 8 DRM.
Windows
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Windows
Origin
Origin
Included with EA Play Pro. Currently only visible in the EA App's Browse menu.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows

Downloadable content (DLC)

The additional mission DLC Endor that follows the dark-side storyline as well as the Character Pack DLC were never released for the PC version.

Pre-order and Collector's Edition content

There were several Pre-order and Collector's Edition bonuses for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, not released for PC. But they are present in files of PC version as well, just locked in game config files.
Pre-Order and Collector's Edition bonuses unlock[2]
  • Bonus Costumes: TFU2CostumeCatalog.costumecat.xml
  1. MaulKiller - GameStop pre-order bonus
  2. Deak Starkiller - Collector's Edition bonus
  • Bonus Challenges: TFU2Flow.Gameflow.xml
  1. Defend the core Trial - Amazon pre-order
  2. The Trial of Dagobah - Amazon pre-order
  3. Core Destruction Trial - Collector's Edition bonus
  4. Tower of Death Trial - Collector's Edition bonus
  5. The Trial of Agility - Collector's Edition bonus
  • Bonus Cinematics: prefs/cinematics.mediacatalog.xml
  1. Adventures of the Starkiller Part 1 - Collector's Edition bonus
  2. Adventures of the Starkiller Part 2 - Collector's Edition bonus
  3. Adventures of the Starkiller Part 3 - Collector's Edition bonus

In order to unlock them you need to:

  1. Open <path-to-game>\LevelPacks\pak2.lp with 7-Zip or WinRAR. It's a zip archive with no compression
  2. Find \Game\Disc\Runtime\ folder. There are several xml files you need
  3. Make backup
  4. Open xml file in text editor and delete these two lines in every file and repack the archive with the program you used (7-Zip or WinRAR) to include your modified xml

<!-- WIN_PORT
-->

You could also unlock these two crystals
  • Pre-order Saber Crystals
  1. Impact / Yellow - increase the damage done by your lightsaber - Collector's Edition bonus
  2. Amplification / Silver - increase the damage done by all your attacks - GameStop pre-order

BUT last game version 1.1 is hardcoded to use persistent number (14) of saber crystals. So in order to unlock 2 additional you need to remove 2 crystals already present in vanilla game.

  1. Make backup
  2. Open <path-to-game>\LevelPacks\pak2.lp
  3. Open \Game\Disc\Runtime\TFU2SaberCrystals.sabercrystal.xml in editor and remove comments like you did previously. Also you'll need to comment any other 2 crystals from the code (not the default red one) and repack the archive with the program you used (7-Zip or WinRAR) to include your modified xml:

<!--
-->

Another way to deal with it is to use 1.0 game exe. It's not hardcoded to 14 saber crystals
In case you wander what default crystals you should remove there is a list of all defaults:
  1. Red - no effects, default sabre (you could change default color for new game in file TFU2PersistentData.lua, so you could delete red color, but no instructions on that, see Crystal Setup block in lua file)
  2. Chaos / Orange - gain extra Force points for destroying your environment
  3. Meditation / Blue - replenishes your force with each strike
  4. Protection / Purple - increase your defensive skills
  5. Fury / Dark Magenta - increases your force fury meter with each enemy defeated
  6. Healing / Dark Green - gain extra health when defeating your enemies
  7. Corrosion / Light Red - grants a chance to do corrosive damage to your enemies
  8. Life Drain / Green - grants a chance to drain your enemies' health
  9. Focus / Light Blue - your powers consume less energy
  10. Regeneration / Light Green - improves your health regeneration
  11. Wisdom / White - gain extra force points when defeating your enemies
  12. Incineration / Unstable Red - grants a chance to set your enemies on fire
  13. Shock / Gold - grants a chance to deal additional lightning damage
  14. Disintegration / Black - grants a chance to disintegrate your enemies
Unused cinematic unlock[3]

There is one cinematic for challenge which was cancelled, so cinematic is just laying in game files. You can restore it to extras menu of the game by editing prefs/cinematics.mediacatalog.xml like in content unlocking. You need to place these code between Challenge1Intro and Challenge3Intro blocks
<MediaCatalogEntryDef>
<mID>Challenge2Intro</mID>
<mMediaFile>FMV/CHL_02</mMediaFile>
<mThumbnail>game/disc/ui/mainmenuonly/assetstream/cinematics/Cine_Challenge2Intro_TB.gfx</mThumbnail>
<mLocalizedTitle>DISTANT THUNDER UNUSED</mLocalizedTitle>
<mLocalizedDesc>Unused cinematic for cancelled challenge</mLocalizedDesc>
<mUnlockedBinding>Persistence.Slot.Profile.Cinematics.Collectors1Unlocked</mUnlockedBinding>
</MediaCatalogEntryDef>

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Delete or rename movie files[4]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\Game\Disc\FMV\Win32\.
  2. Delete or rename LEC, LEC_DE, LEC_ES, LEC_FR, LEC_IT, LEC_PL, and LEC_RU.
Skip intro videos[citation needed]
  1. Download this patch.
  2. Extract zip file into <path-to-game>.
  3. Run NoIntro_SWTFU2.exe and click "Disable Intro".
  4. Start the game.

Wet Clothes fix

Restores wet clothes effect that was originally available for the console versions and was absent in the PC version.
  1. Download this file.
  2. Go to the game directory and there open the folder LevelPacks.
  3. Open pak0.lp file with WinRAR or 7-Zip or WinZIP.
  4. In the opened archive, go <path-to-game>/Disc/Characters/maleAverage and drag there content of maleAverage.rar, confirm replacement of original files.
    1. (optional) If you want Darth Vader's armor be affected by rain, drag material from "Vader.rar to Game/Disc/Characters/maleBrute/darthVader
  5. Play the game.

Patches

Patch 1.1

GOG.com and Steam users are already patched to the latest version

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\LucasArts\Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/32500/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\LucasArts\Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2\Saves\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/32500/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud

Video

Screen settings.
Screen settings.
Graphics details settings.
Graphics details settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Game may crash on start if multiple monitors are enabled.[citation needed]
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Certain parts of the interface scales poorly.
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
The Game uses bars for anisotropic filtering but max is 16x.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Directionally Localized Anti-Aliasing (proprietary post-processing method)[5]
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See Forcing Vsync.
60 FPS
Capped at 30 FPS by default; use the FPS cap fix.
120+ FPS
Capped at 30 FPS by default; use the FPS cap fix.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
Rendered image uses SDR color space. In-game HDR option refers only to HDR Rendering.

High frame rate

Use Patched EXE[citation needed]

Use the FPS cap fix. Available options are 40 FPS, 50 FPS, 60 FPS, and unlimited.

Notes

Force-gripped objects/enemies may constantly move upwards (original game bug) and when using the 50 and 60 FPS exes this effect can be even more pronounced; if this happens, try using the -variableTimesteps parameter.
All cutscenes, both pre-rendered and rendered in-engine, will continue to run at 30fps.
May cause occasional crashes. You may be able to avoid some of them by using the -variableTimesteps parameter.[citation needed]
High framerate can also make the Gorog bossfight QTE and AT-MP's (All Terrain Missile Platform) missiles buggy.[citation needed]
Use a hex editor
  1. Open SWTFU2.exe with a hex editor such as HxD.
  2. Search for the hexadecimal value C78660 0100001E.
  3. For 60 FPS, change it to C78660 0100003C. For 40 FPS, change it to C78660 01000028.
  4. Save your changes.
Set custom display refresh rate
Game is running at 60Hz display refresh rate by default
  1. Go to configuration file(s) location.
  2. Edit Config.xml.
  3. Change 60 in <s id="Win.RefreshHz">60</s> line either to your preferred display refresh rate or to 0 to use display refresh rate set for Windows desktop.
  4. Save your changes.

Input

Mouse settings.
Mouse settings.
Controller settings.
Controller settings.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
No mouse acceleration.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Menus do not have full mouse support if a controller is connected.
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Invert x-axis also available.
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Options' sub-menus can't be navigated.
Controller remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion
Invert x-axis also available.
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration
PlayStation controllers
Generic/other controllers
Additional information
Button prompts
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio settings.
Audio settings.
Game settings.
Game settings.
Login settings.
Login settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Voice, Music, Sound Effects
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio
The original Star Wars theme and other pieces composed by John Williams are present throughout the game.

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Translation.
Russian
Fan voiceover by "Kinatan" is available here.
Spanish

Issues fixed

Crash on startup

If your monitor resolution does not match the game's or you are using a second monitor it will crash on load. This seems most common when your desktop is set to 1920x1080.
There is also a problem where if your monitor is set to a refresh rate of 59 instead of 60 the game may crash.
Fix 1920x1080 crash[citation needed]
  1. Set your desktop resolution to 1650x1050 and boot the game.
  2. From there navigate to the options and change the game resolution.
  3. You can now exit out of the game and change your resolution back and the game should boot.
Fix 59 Hz crash[citation needed]
  1. Right click your desktop, select properties or screen resolution.
  2. Click advanced under the resolution tab, and change your monitor to a 60 Hz refresh rate.
Fix dual screen crash[citation needed]
  1. Open SWTFU2.exe compatibility settings.
  2. Check the box saying "Disable Desktop Composition".

Notes

This will disable Aero but turn it back on when you're done playing and you can keep both screens plugged in.
Set compatibility mode[citation needed]
  1. Open SWTFU2.exe compatibility settings.
  2. Set Windows 7 compatibility mode.

In game videos glitching or not playing

The FMV files use the wmv3 and wmap codecs for video and audio, which are not well-supported by some alternative codec packs like DirectShow. The game uses your computer's own installed codecs to play the videos.
Change WMV association[citation needed]

Change the default .wmv video player to Windows Media Player.

Transcode FMV files with FFMPEG
Your codecs may not work well with the wmv format, in which case the game simply won't play the videos properly. However, because the game uses your system's installed codecs, you can replace the FMV files with different ones that will play better, by transcoding them yourself. Transcoding may take some time, however, depending on your computer.
  1. Download the latest FFMPEG release from here (select 32-bit or 64-bit depending on your system), then from inside the bin file inside the zip file, copy ffmpeg.exe and place it into your <path-to-game>/Game/Disc/FMV/Win32 folder. IMPORTANT: Make sure the name of the file is ffmpeg.exe.
  2. Open a PowerShell window (you may need to open this window as Administrator) and go to your <path-to-game>/Game/Disc/FMV/Win32 folder (Do this by using the "set-location" command followed by the file location inside quotes. Ex: set-location "C:\<path-to-game>/Game/Disc/FMV/Win32").
  3. Paste the below code into the PowerShell window, and hit Enter:

$convblock = {
	$path = "conv/"
	If(!(test-path $path)){
		  New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $path
	}
	$files = Get-ChildItem -File
	foreach ($file in $files){
		If(-NOT ($file.name -like "ffmpeg.exe")){
			./ffmpeg.exe -i "$($file.name)" -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 18 -c:a aac -b:a 256k "conv/$($file.name).mkv"
			Move-Item -Force "conv/$($file.name).mkv" "./$($file.name)"
		}
	}
	Remove-Item -LiteralPath "$path" -Force -Recurse
	Remove-Item "ffmpeg.exe"
}
Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock $convblock

The above code will automatically convert the videos, overwrite the old ones, and clean up after itself by removing the temporary conversion folder and ffmpeg.exe for you. However, note that the conversion process could take some time, up to a few hours on a low-end machine.

The new files will use the h.264 video codec and the aac audio codec.

Disable in-game videos[citation needed]

Rename FMV folder located in <path-to-game>/Game/Disc/ (to FMV_old, for example).

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Shader Model support 3.0
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics Havok
Cutscenes Windows Media Video 9

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP SP3, Vista SP2
Processor (CPU) Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz
AMD Athlon X2 5200+
System memory (RAM) 2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 10 GB + 1 GB Swap File
Video card (GPU) ATI Radeon HD 2600
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT
256 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
Shader model 3.0 support
Sound (audio device) DirectX 9.0c compatible


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/32500/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (32500) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 Pt. 2 (Page 3) - CVG UK - last accessed on May 2023
  2. How to Unlock DLC - Steam Community - last accessed on 2024-03-13
  3. Reference
  4. Verified by User:Baronsmoki on 2019-04-10
  5. Eurogamer.net - Lucas explains Force Unleashed II tech - last accessed on 2023-01-30