Star Wars Games That Let You Play As Droids

Star Wars has always been more about the humans and aliens than the decidedly more synthetic droids when it comes to its more prominent stories. This is true from movies like Solo: A Star Wars Story, where the droid-centric side plot is treated like a joke, to shows like Star Wars Rebels, where the resident droid character Chopper is mostly a sidekick who commits a surprising number of war crimes.

Droids often get the short end of the stick in most Star Wars media, and this includes video games. You’re not going to find any major games where a droid is your main playable character. But there are a fair number of titles where, at the very least, you have the option of playing as several of your favorite metallic mateys.

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Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

The main draw of the Lego games based on any of your favorite media series tends to be the ability to play as nearly any character who hails from the source material. For something like Star Wars, the pile of potential playable people can feel endless, and the latest entry, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, compiles nearly all of the canon ones.

Naturally, this includes the droids, and you’re going to find plenty to play as while you’re comedically going through the events of all three trilogies. Regulars like C-3PO and R2-D2 are a given, but you’ll also have the bounty hunter 4-LOM and even the non-canon Rebel battle droid R0-GR from Lego Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures. Sadly, no Chopper. Maybe his body count was too high for a family game.

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Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds

It’s almost surprising it took as long as it did for Star Wars to put out a proper real-time strategy game. Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds lets players live out their fantasies of commanding an army during many classic and new skirmishes from throughout the Star Wars timeline (at the time of its release in 2001, at least).

One of the campaigns you can undertake is that of the Trade Federation, which includes commanding the droid army. While it can be argued that you’re not technically playing as the droids themselves, it wouldn’t be farfetched to assume the army’s unseen overseer you’re playing as is also a droid, as some of them hold higher ranks like those pompous dinguses in The Clone Wars.

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Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic

As the first big Star Wars RPG courtesy of BioWare, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic needed to really bring it in terms of story and characters, and it excelled at both. A certain assassin droid remains a fan-favorite from the game even to this day, and yes, you could play as him.

Of course, the game’s main character is still the player-created figure you embody from the start. But you’re able to take control of any party member, including the hilariously deadpan killer droid HK-47 and the decidedly more chill astromech unit T3-M4.

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Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2

Obsidian Entertainment’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords included both playable droids from its predecessor as well as a couple of newcomers. You have T3-M4 right from the start this time around (and he’s even the first character you play as).

Aside from them, the Zabrak engineer Bao-Dur brings an adorable little remote droid with him when he joins your party, which you get to control during the game’s final mission in a rather harrowing segment. The droid G0-T0 also joins your party at one point, though his prickly personality means you’d be forgiven for forgetting he’s even there, despite his intriguing backstory.

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Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2005)

While Galactic Battlegrounds let players take part in iconic Star Wars battles, it was the Battlefront series that brought the concept to its full potential. Playing as soldiers from the Rebels, Empire, Separatists, and Republic, you could finally live out your dream of fighting at the Battle of Endor or blasting Mace Windu off a random Bespin platform (dreams take many forms).

In both of the classic Star Wars: Battlefront games, the ability to play as the Separatist droid army is a prominent feature. But Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is where that idea really soared. Battle droids, super battle droids, droidekas, other words that will make the term “droid” sound meaningless from repetition, it was all there.

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Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2017)

A decade after Battlefront 2 arguably perfected its vision, the series was rebooted with Dice’s Star Wars Battlefront in 2015. This game and 2017’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 were divisive among fans to say the least, with credible accusations of predatory design behind its loot box system and an overall big shift from previous games. But somehow, it got better. Much better.

Theoretically chasing the same goal as the original games, the new Battlefront series eventually won over fans once it removed the unnecessary gambling bits. Along with a fantastic single-player campaign, Battlefront 2 may have perfected its formula, and it brought even more playable droids along for the ride, including BB-8 in the hero roster, where he absolutely belongs.

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Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga

Before The Skywalker Saga, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga had already brought tons of playable droids to the series. Letting you play through the first six Star Wars movies in Lego form, the novelty remains novel to this day, and its use of grunts and emotes instead of voice acting actually helps with that.

Nearly every droid you can think of that showed up between the prequels and original trilogy is here, and that’s no exaggeration. Somehow, one of the first characters you can unlock is TC-14, the protocol droid who greets Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon at the beginning of Episode 1. Not the deepest cut, but admit it, you didn’t remember her name.

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Star Wars: Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles (2025)

When a remaster of Star Wars: Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles was announced, reactions ranged from “this is everything” to “what?” You sort of had to be there at the time to really vibe with what this game had to offer: the story of The Phantom Menace with way more action than in the movie and characters who definitely weren’t there.

While the original on PlayStation and Dreamcast just included several Jedi and a couple unlockable blaster-toting characters like Padme, the remaster added several more non-lightsaber wielders including a battle droid, and you can play as all of them from the start. That’s right, tell your story of bold defection, random battle droid.