A few days ago, Lucasfilm reentered the world of video games. This event was accompanied by an announcement of a new open world game set in the Star Wars universe. This was welcome news to Star Wars fans and gamers alike. Lucasfilm Games, the reincarnation of the company’s former LucasArts, is partnering with Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment to produce the game.
After being acquired by the Disney Company, Lucasfilm had closed up their game development studio and handed Electronic Arts a 10-year exclusive contract to make video games. Apparently, Disney wanted to figure out how to make the Star Wars brand work so they shuttered LucasArts to focus on delivering content to film, TV, books, and comic book media.
Now after years of missteps by EA, Lucasfilm is back in the game. Rumors are Lucasfilm and Disney realize they need to be more involved with the creation and management of Star Wars video games. And it seems they realize that handing exclusivity to one video game studio is not the path to making great games.
“EA has been and will continue to be a very strategic and important partner for us now and going forward,” said Sean Shoptaw, senior vice president of Global Games and Interactive Experiences at Disney, as told to WIRED, which broke the story. “But we did feel like there’s room for others.”
A MASSIVE GAME
Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment specializes in massive, open world games. Strangely, Star Wars never had an open world game. It’s strange because Star Wars has a whole galaxy to explore. Up to now, Star Wars gamers had to make do with games with a linear narrative. There are also Star Wars strategy games, first person shooters, and even virtual pinball. However, these didn’t give fans the immersive experience as playing as a small being in a system with tens of thousands of planets.
That’s the first thing we need—a massive game. We don’t expect Massive Entertainment to create a million worlds to explore, but more than one would be great. It’s possible the game might revive LucasArt’s earlier concept of Level 1313, a third person shooter based on Level 1313 on Coruscant. This would allow players to explore a massive map on one world, but this would still be limiting given the expanse of the Star Wars universe.
EA’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order showed how a Star Wars game could successfully explore multiple worlds. But that is a very linear game—moving Jedi Cal Kestis and his cohort from point to point along a set narrative. The open world Star Wars game needs to do something similar to this, but with massive maps instead of a Point A to Point B narrative.
A FAN GAME MADE BY FANS
The secret sauce that made The Mandalorian TV series a success is it was made by Star Wars fans. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have a deep understanding of the Star Wars source material. Not just the movies and mainstream stories, but the obscure characters, items, and places found in old video games, comic books, and infamous holiday specials.
The new game must be directed by someone who is a true fan of the Star Wars universe. Ubisoft can recruit the best creative director in the industry, but if they don’t live and breathe Star Wars, the game will likely be a dud.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a smashing success as an open world game because it was developed by Nintendo. The people working on the game knew the source material inside and out. They were able to successfully transpose the Legend of Zelda dungeons and puzzles model to an open world that still captured and amplified the spirit of the preceding games.
NERF HERDERS WANTED
Video games where players are all-powerful Jedi or Sith have been done again and again. It would be refreshing to have a game where players are, well, regular people beings. I don’t mean meiloorun vendors or Kowakian monkey-lizard trainers.
Offering different classes of normies to play like smuggler, mercenary, and bounty hunter would allow for more flexible game play. Super powerful characters have far less freedom to do what they want. “With great power comes great responsibility,” as you know.
If the open world Star Wars game is a massive multiplayer online game (which it better be), having thousands of Jedis and Sith lords running around will be tiring and unrealistic. Also, the game can’t offer players the option to be normies or super powerful characters. Once again, the game will be tiring. The most powerful classes will walk all over the normal character classes. Then we’re back to everyone choosing to be super powerful force wielders.
AVOID THE GRIND
Leveling up characters and acquiring items and wealth should not be a grind. If players have to spend many hours fighting one meaningless battle after another just to level up, the game will suck. Game progression should be natural. Completing missions and achieving other goals should feel natural and grant players rewards.
I’ve played too many games where achieving a high kill count is more important than actually achieving goals. “Playing the mission” needs to be the primary reward system of the game or it will just be another grind. The game has to have battles to fit in the Star Wars narrative, of course, but there needs to be more than just shooting a bunch of other players or bots.
PLEASE GIVE US VEHICLES
One of the hallmarks of the Star Wars universe is the vehicles. Players will need access to a full slate of starships to get from here to there (which they should earn through missions). As a player progresses, the types of ships they could acquire should naturally increase.
And we need ground transports too. It wouldn’t be a Star Wars game without flying through a forest on a speeder bike or soaring above Coruscant in a speeder. Or even riding a bantha across Tatooine’s Dune Sea.
The trick for the developers to make each vehicle easy enough to control to be fun. I think that’s why Star Wars: Squadrons wasn’t a bigger success. It was just a tad too technical. EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront series achieved a nice balance between fun game play and controlling vehicles (although I thought the speeder bikes blew up way too easily).
CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
For an open world Star Wars game to be truly open, players should be able to do what they want. If they want to spend hours playing sabacc in some seedy cantina or fishing all day in the vast seas of Corellia, players should have that choice. The game can’t solely be a series of missions or grinding to level up.
There has to be things to do in between. That could be shopping for new outfits and accessories after a big payday or simply taking a hike through a lush forest or blowing all your credits at a casino on Canto Bight.
We feel confident in LucasFilm Games selection of Ubisoft Massive Entertainment. This is what Massive does. They make games with massive maps. Their work with the Tom Clancy’s The Division series is a good idea of what they might do with the open world Star Wars game. The maps of Manhattan and Washington, DC in those games possess both large areas and an attention to details.
Now Massive needs to hire a creative director who truly understands the universe of Star Wars. If they can do that, we may get a game that actually unites Star Wars fans. Wouldn’t that be something.
