Jade Empire is the third game in our series on 15 Xbox classics you can still play on Xbox Series X|S. It was BioWare’s first role-playing game set in a world of its own making, and it was made for Xbox first.
Jade Empire at a glance
Developer: BioWare
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Original release: 12 April 2005 (North America), 22 April 2005 (Europe)
Original console: Xbox
Xbox Store price: £9.19 / $9.99
Game Pass: not included
Backward compatible since: 17 April 2018
What is Jade Empire?
Jade Empire is an action role-playing game set in a fantasy kingdom drawn from ancient Chinese history and mythology. You play a Spirit Monk, rescued as a baby when the order was wiped out and raised in the village of Two Rivers by Master Li. When Lotus Assassins destroy the village and capture Master Li, you set out to rescue him.
Combat happens in real time. You and a chosen follower fight with normal, heavy and area attacks, and you can block and dodge. Some fighting styles are hand-to-hand, others use weapons or magic, and some heal or boost you. The team based many of the moves on the kung fu of film stars such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
Conversations follow two philosophies rather than simple good and evil. The Open Palm is about selflessness, and the Closed Fist is about self-reliance and can be more violent. Your choices change how your followers and other characters react to you, and a major choice near the end decides how the story finishes.
Jade Empire’s history on Xbox
BioWare started work on Jade Empire in May 2001. By then, it had made its name with role-playing games based on other people’s worlds, most recently Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Jade Empire was the studio’s first original setting, and it had long been a dream project for co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, who were its executive producers.
It reused the morality system from Knights of the Old Republic but swapped turn-based fights for real-time combat. Many characters speak Tho Fan, a 2,500-word language made up for the game by Wolf Wikeley, with English subtitles. Every line, English and Tho Fan alike, was voiced, and the recorded script came to more than 320,000 words. Nathan Fillion voices Gao the Lesser in one of his earliest game roles. Jack Wall composed the score, mixing Eastern musical styles with Western ones.
Microsoft announced the game in September 2003, and more was shown at that year’s Tokyo Game Show. It was originally due in March 2005 but launched in April instead, with a limited edition that added an extra playable character with his own fighting style. It had a marketing budget of $5 million.
BioWare said in 2007 that it had no plans for Jade Empire 2. In 2011, Muzyka and Zeschuk said the studio was still passionate about the setting, but no sequel has been made.
Why it matters
Jade Empire sits between Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect in BioWare’s history. It was the first time the studio built a world and a story entirely from scratch, and Jack Wall went on to score Mass Effect after working on it. It also came out under Microsoft Game Studios, at a time when Microsoft was publishing role-playing games for Xbox from big western studios.
Because no sequel was ever made, the original is still the only way to play it on Xbox.
How to play Jade Empire on Xbox Series X|S today
Jade Empire was added to the Xbox One backward compatibility programme on 17 April 2018, so it runs on Xbox Series X|S too. You can buy it from the Xbox Store for £9.19 or $9.99.
It isn’t currently in any Game Pass tier, and it doesn’t have FPS Boost. The store lists it as Xbox One X Enhanced.
If you own the original Xbox disc, an Xbox One or Xbox Series X will recognise it and download the backward-compatible version. Xbox Series S owners will need the digital copy.
More on Jade Empire
Our Jade Empire hub has the essentials and will collect future coverage. Tomorrow, the series turns to Rare’s Conker: Live and Reloaded.
