Disney announced that their Star Wars games would now be labeled under the “Lucasfilm Games” name. This announcement brings back memories of the “LucasArts’ era. They made this announcement in a recent blog post. While no new games were announced with post, it could mean a new future for Star Wars video games.
For the past decade, Disney and Electronic Arts have been in a partnership with each other to produce Star Wars video games. That partnership is scheduled to end in 2023, meaning it would be possible for Disney to search for other candidates to take up the Star Wars video game responsibility.
Given that partnership’s history, it wouldn’t be surprising for Disney to search for other candidates. During that partnership, the Star Wars games have been a mixed bag. The Old Republic is probably the most profitable of those projects, even if it didn’t quite meet the expectations they were hoping for. It is still a well-known MMO with loyal players.
However, it is hard to forget everything that went down with Battlefront. Their microtransactions easily ruined the player experience and set the sequel up for a smaller number of fans.
The most recent success story is Respawn’s Jedi: The Fallen Order. It was widely received and its single-player focused direction was a refreshing thing to see in a Star Wars video game. Star Wars Squadrons also turned out to be a good game, but was overshadowed by other releases at the time.
So, given the Electronic Arts partnership having its ups and downs it’s very possible for Disney to be looking for other avenues to take. Lately, it hasn’t just been Electronic Arts that hasn’t lived up to expectations, either. Crystal Dyanmic’s Marvel’s Avengers certainly had a rough start as well. If Disney is exploring the idea of their own game studio, it could help control some of those situations.
Disney could continue to outsource their IPs to other developers too, though. In the past, it’s what they always have done. However, given the amount of announcements Disney has made recently regarding the Star Wars franchise, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are working on bringing everything closer to home.
It’s easy to imagine a future of Star Wars games that do the franchise justice, especially with everything Disney Plus is working on. It would be great to see them take full control of their IPs and put out some great stuff. However, there are plenty of studios out there that could do that as well.
Regardless, it’s pretty clear that a new AAA Star Wars title is already in the works. Given the partnership ending in 2023 and how long games can take to make, it would make sense that Disney has someone working on this already.
According to IGN’s Dan Stepleton, he is thinking the same thing. We could be seeing a new Star Wars game free from Electronic Arts in just two years. So far, there are no indications that Disney plans to renew its partnership with Electronic Arts, but that could still happen. Regardless of what goes down though, Disney obviously has video games on their mind for the franchise’s future.
Editor’s note: Disney has announced that Ubisoft is working on a new “open world” Star Wars title.
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