While the first game is set a year after the events of A New Hope, the sequels take place in the decade following Return of the Jedi.

The Jedi Knight series began in 1995 with the release of Star Wars: Dark Forces for DOS, Macintosh, and PlayStation.

In 1998, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith was released as an expansion pack for Dark Forces II, this time giving the player control of Mara Jade as well as Katarn.

Jedi Outcast was developed by Raven Software and powered by the id Tech 3 game engine.

Jedi Academy was the first game in the series where the player does not control Katarn at any point, although he is featured prominently in the storyline.

The Jedi Knight series is composed primarily of first/third-person shooter gameplay elements, with a number of variation on the norms of the genre within each game.

[26] In the first game, Dark Forces, the focus is on combat against various creatures and characters from the Star Wars universe, and includes environmental puzzles and hazards, whilst following a central storyline outlined in mission briefings and cutscenes.

[29] Unlike its predecessor, Mysteries of the Sith has a single, morally positive course,[30] as the player progresses through the game in a linear fashion.

Jedi Outcast's gameplay is similar to that of its predecessors, with some small additions, such as access to gun turrets, or the use of combos unique to each of the three lightsaber styles in the game; fast, medium and strong.

[39] Jedi Outcast features several multiplayer modes, which, in the PC and Mac versions, can be played over a LAN or the internet.

[41][42] Game modes include "Free-For-All", "Team Deathmatch", "Capture the Flag", "Power Duel" and "Siege", all of which can be played with other players, bots, or both.

[43][44][45] Jedi Academy introduces several multiplayer modifications, such as Movie Battles II which allows players to take part in lightsaber duels that featured in the Star Wars films.

[46] Movie Battles also lets players choose different classes of character, ranging from Jedi Knight to Wookiee.

[49] Prior to the events of Dark Forces, Katarn was a student studying to follow in his father's career of agricultural mechanics.

His anger led him to enlist in the Imperial army, where he soon met Jan Ors, an undercover double agent working for the Alliance.

[50] In the first level of Dark Forces, which is set prior to A New Hope, Katarn recovers the plans to the Death Star, a heavily armed space station capable of destroying entire planets.

[51] However, Katarn still does not join the Jedi Order, instead using his powers for the New Republic, and taking on an apprentice with a similar history to himself; Mara Jade.

[49] In Jedi Outcast, Ors is captured by Desann, a former pupil of Luke Skywalker who has turned to the Dark Side.

If Jaden chooses to spare Rosh, they ultimately defeat both Tavion and the spirit of Ragnos, and are lauded for their actions by Katarn and Luke.

Production of Star Wars: Dark Forces began in September 1993, with Daron Stinnett as project leader and Justin Chin as lead writer.

Dark Forces thus features numerous logic puzzles and parts of the game requires a strategic method to progress, often involving manipulation of the environment.

[55] Lucasarts developed the Jedi game engine to power Dark Forces, adding features to the first-person shooter genre that were uncommon at the time, such as multi-level floors and free look, as well as athletic abilities such as running, jumping, ducking and swimming.

[62] Dark Forces II also introduced multiplayer gaming to the series, allowing players to play online or via a LAN.

[63] Unlike previous games in the series, Jedi Outcast was not developed in-house by LucasArts, but by Raven Software.

In 2024, the first game in the series, Dark Forces, was remastered on all major eighth and ninth-generation consoles released after the Wii U by Nightdive Studios, currently leaving the PC-exclusive Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II to be the last, only game in the series to not be available on any consoles or remastered for later platforms.

The publication commented that using such a weapon in a game was "extremely satisfying," and stated that lightsaber usage had been refined as the series continued.