The Nintendo 64 was the home of a number of memorable games, and Star Wars titles were definitely among the ranks of the favored releases. One of these titles just celebrated its 20th anniversary – Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.

Inspired largely by the Star Wars: X-Wing Rogue Squadron comic books, the title takes place between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. The player controls Luke Skywalker as he leads the Rogue Squadron across numerous missions in space and on some recognizable planets.

Rogue Squadron began development after the success of 1996’s Shadows of the Empire. LucasArts opted to collaborate with Factor 5, who they had worked with in the past, and who was in the process of developing a new game engine designed to create large in-game terrains. During development, Factor 5 approached Nintendo to be granted use of the new Expansion Pak, which Nintendo had originally designed for hardware usage only. However, after Turok 2 made use of the Expansion Pak to help display higher-resolution graphics, the Rogue Squadron team was granted development rights for it. As such, it became one of the first games released to support Expansion Pak usage.

The game was memorable for its various unlockable vehicles, which could be released to the player by use of in-game cheat codes. These vehicles included notable Star Wars ships such as the Millennium Falcon and a TIE Interceptor, though the lineup also included a 1969 Buick Electra (based on a car owned by one of the game’s designers). Players could also unlock the Naboo Starfighter from Episode I, though the ship was purposefully hidden behind two codes that had to be input one after another correctly and the game was designed with a scrambling system to hide that code from cheat devices like GameSharks. More than six months after Rogue Squadron released, LucasArts officially unveiled the code to unlock the Starfighter, in conjunction with that film’s release.

Rogue Squadron was positively received upon release, particularly with regard to its graphical display by use of the Expansion Pak. It sold well, especially given how it was up against The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in the same release window. Rogue Squadron would see two direct sequels for the GameCube by 2003.