by theygamesDisney’s recent announcement of the formation of Lucasfilm Games left Star Wars fan wondering if this was merely a marketing rebrand or something marking a significant change for Star Wars games going forward. It didn’t take long for us to find out.
Earlier this month, we learned that EA will no longer keep its exclusivity on Star Wars games, with Disney’s announcement of a long-term collaboration with Ubisoft. This shift away from EA exclusive Star Wars games blows the doors wide open with possibilities.
While EA did mostly fail to take full advantage of the license, there were some bright spots, including Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order, the redemption arc of Star Wars: Battlefront II, and more recently, Star Wars: Squadrons. I’m glad to hear EA will still be making Star Wars games, but I’m even more encouraged by the fact that we could see studios both large and small tackling these projects along the lines of what we saw in the Golden Age of Star Wars games in the ‘90s and early 2000s.
What’s on deck? And what are some fun possibilities? Let’s dive in.
Ubisoft’s Open World Star Wars Game
Given the fact this title is being developed by Ubisoft’s Massive, the team responsible Tom Clancy’s The Division series of shared world shooters and is also being led Division 2 director Julian Gerighty, I think it’s safe to speculate that we’re looking at some sort of Star Wars Division type title here.
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that just yet. On the one hand, a new Star Wars “MMO” even if it is an MMO-lite style title is exciting to me at face value. On the other, is Massive’s mixed record with The Division series. The first game got off to an extremely rocky start but was eventually turned around. The sequel started off on a better footing, but still managed to make a lot of the same mistakes of its predecessor.
We’ll see how it goes. I’m a bit apprehensive, but hoping they do a good job of it.
Knights of the High Republic
Disney’s shown some open interest in tackling the Knights of the Old Republic story, going as far back as 2019 when Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy confirmed that Disney was “developing something to look at” with regards to KOTOR. Since then, we’ve also heard rumors swirling around as early as last year about a new KOTOR project or KOTOR remake that would be more of a re-imagining of the series.
Fast forward to just the last couple of days, and a new rumor coming from Bespin Bulletin suggests that a new KOTOR project is being developed outside of EA.
There’s a lot of smoke when it comes to this property and I feel like there’s probably a lot of truth to these rumors, but I don’t think it’s going to pan out the way fans expect. What seems more likely to me is something along the lines of Jordan Maison’s rumor where the new title would integrate themes from the original games and serve as a sort of re-imagining. Disney’s new High Republic multimedia initiative seems like a perfect fit for something like that. The High Republic stories go back to a time of the height of the Jedi, similar to the Old Republic, but not thousands of years in the past. This is a lot easier to work with when considering that the games would have to be canon and align with everything else in Star Wars (and also require that new material align with it). Going back thousands of years could potentially box in lots of creative works that want to explore the spaces in between, but a couple hundred years isn’t as bad.
It also just makes sense with the way Disney is pushing this era now, with books, comics, and now even a TV show with the recent announcement of The Acolyte, to also add a high profile game to this list.
Star Wars Immersive Sim
Getting into pure wish fulfillment mode here, one completely new project I’d like to see is a Star Wars immersive sim developed by Arkane Studios, the developers of Dishonored, Prey, and the forthcoming Deathloop. Arkane’s shown a knack for creating games in this underrepresented genre and it’s not hard to imagine how a Force-wielding character could work incredibly well within the sort of mold of a Dishonored type of title. Ironically, the original concept for Prey 2 by Human Head Studios, which focused on playing a bounty hunter, could also work well here.
Republic Commando 2
The Clone Wars era has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years, so a sequel to the beloved Republic Commando first person shooter released in 2005 is something I feel would do incredibly well. I wouldn’t even be opposed to it taking the form of a video game version of the Bad Batch, the elite squad of clone troopers featured in season seven of Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series and the stars of an entire new animated series of the same name.
What are some Star Wars games you’d like to see developed? And which studios would you like to see develop them? Share your thoughts in the comments below!