Trivia / Shadows of the Empire

• Approval of God: George Lucas considers Shadows to be the one expanded universe production that should have been an official Star Wars film, to the point that Dash Rendar's Outrider was given a cameo appearance in the special edition of A New Hope and The Rise of Skywalker, and Xizor has a cameo in The Phantom Menace^note Using a Micro Machines miniature in a crowd shot. Subverted when Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm and subsequent erasure of all EU material from canon also took Shadows with it. However, several elements would later be made canon if the book, comics, and game themselves weren't.^note Dash is mentioned in the tie-in novel for Solo: A Star Wars Story, and the cameos in the films are still considered canon.
• Creator Backlash: Lead designer Jon Knoles admitted that the game suffered from overreaching by trying to cram numerous different gameplay styles in (resulting in the team writing at least five different engines for the game), feeling only a couple of them were really pulled off well. He said he learned to have more focused game design from then on out once he worked on Star Wars Racer and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Bob Bergen fills in for Mark Hamill, being his official "audio double." This holds true in the Rogue Squadron series as well.
  • Lisa Fuson, Carrie Fisher's "voice double", takes the role of Leia.
• Schedule Slip: The game was supposed to be a launch title for Nintendo 64, but for some reason got pushed back to December 2, 1996, as evidenced by its appearance in N64: Change the System as a featured title alongside actual launch titles Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64, it was the last title to be removed from the launch slate.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The reason Dash Rendar has such boxy, huge shoulder pads was because of technical limitations, as the CGI of the time couldn't render rounded forms like shoulders.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: Since the Star Destroyer in the video game's final battle shows a health percentage when you shoot it, many purported ways to take it down have been circulating since it was first released. In short: none of them work, and there's no way to even so much as scratch the Star Destroyer.^note (At least, not without hacking the game to increase the damage output of the Outrider. Even then, the Star Destroyer isn't programmed to do anything once its shield strength hits 0%, meaning that it won't actually achieve anything)
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to a Gamesradar interview with lead designer Jon Knoles, the game was originally supposed to be centered on Boba Fett to tie it in with Dark Horse's Shadows of the Empire tie-in comic. However, Nintendo wanted the game to have an exclusive lead character instead of the usual Star Wars cast, hence why Dash Rendar is the protagonist.
  • The game initially wasn't even going to be a Star Wars game at first—it was initially planned as a Western-themed third person shooter, with a train level being made as a test (which evolved into the Ord Mantell level). The reason for the Star Wars license was because they were reluctant to have a new IP with such an unorthodox genre as a launch title for the Nintendo 64.
  • Xizor's personal ship, the Virago, was to get a 4 inch-scaled figure vehicle toy and was even featured in an advertisement for the toyline. However, it never saw release. It would have had spring-deployed wings and missile launchers. A version was released in the Micro Machines Action Fleet line, and much later in the Star Wars Titanium series.

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