Last August, Lenovo announced Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, an augmented reality game that is based on the movie franchise. Coming with a headset that you can plug your phone into and your very own lightsaber, for the first time, you could battle characters like Darth Vader and Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel, all for $199. It was any Star Wars fan"s dream come true.
And now, it"s about to get even better, because you"ll be able to strike down your friends. With what Lenovo is calling Lightsaber Versus Mode, you"ll be able to go one-on-one with anyone else that has the product. What"s even better is that since the headset is powered by a smartphone, you can pretty easily allow people to take turns with it, swapping out the phones.
"Innovating and iterating based on customer feedback is a big part of what makes Lenovo products different and better," said Jeff Meredith, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Lenovo Consumer PCs and Smart Devices. "One of the most popular fan requests since the launch of Star Wars: Jedi Challenges is to enable 1-on-1 local multiplayer mode for fans to duel one another in lightsaber battles. We’re excited to continue collaborating with Disney to fulfill fans’ wishes by testing the frontiers of augmented reality. The introduction of the Lightsaber Versus Mode is another step in our journey to offering consumers one-of-a-kind, immersive experiences made possible by AR."
If you already own the product, you might have noticed that the tracking beacon has a blue and a pink setting, but the game only prompts you to use pink. Well, now we know why there was another setting, so it can be used for two players.
Lightsaber Versus Mode works similarly to the way that Lightsaber Battles work now, giving the player cues that show where to block, where to strike, and when to duck and dodge. You"ll want to try and win quickly, because the game gradually increases in difficulty.
This is the second major update for Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, with the first being in January. That added content from the latest Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi. Today"s new content is once again a free update for anyone that owns the game, and it comes as a celebration of Star Wars Day. As they say, May the Fourth be with you.