Joel McNeely is an Emmy® Award-winning composer and conductor with more than 100 motion picture and television credits. The game was based on a book by Steve Perry. In the game, which serves as backstory between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the player controls the mercenary Dash Rendar in his efforts to help Luke Skywalker and rescue Princess Leia from Prince Xizor.

A version for Microsoft Windows followed in 1997, and sold out reissues have kept the game alive amongst the Star Wars fan base since its release over 20 years ago. The Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire game was developed and published by LucasArts for Nintendo 64 on December 3, 1996, and sold one million copies in its first year. The album art features the main Star Wars characters and was created by legendary illustrator Drew Struzan (Blade Runner, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future).

Samples of the soundtrack were used in both versions of the Shadows of the Empire game, with the Windows version containing many of the full tracks. May the 4th be with you! In celebration of Star Wars Day, Varèse Sarabande Records is thrilled to announce the upcoming special release of the music for Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire by GRAMMY®-nominated composer Joel McNeely.Īlongside the Shadows of the Empire multimedia project, (which included a novel, comic book and video game), a full soundtrack was composed by Joel McNeely and recorded with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Shadows of the empire theme