In January 2021 it was announced by Ubisoft that their Massive Entertainment studio would be collaborating with Disney and Lucasfilm to create a new open world Star Wars game. Now, Massive are used to creating AAA titles and obviously Ubisoft are pretty adept at creating open world series including Assassin’s Creed, so this looks promising.
Massive are continuing to use their Snowdrop Engine, which was behind The Division 1 & 2 amongst others, so we should expect well rendered worlds, hopefully alongside a tight, thrilling story. But the big questions are, where will it be set, and is it going to be an all-encompassing galaxy wide endeavour, or confined to a specific world?
Ubisoft haven’t quite stated any of that yet, merely mentioning that it would be set in the ‘Star Wars Galaxy’. Considering the breadth of the three trilogies, the anthology films, and the new series, this leaves numerous time periods and locations as possibilities.
There is no release date set just yet, so what would we like to see and what might be included? Just for fun, let’s engage in some conjecture…
The likelihood is that the game will feature a third person style of gameplay, as it uses the same engine as The Division 2, but surely must have functional vehicles. There are so many great vehicles and ships in Star Wars history, that to try to do an open world experience without them would be very surprising. The key would be to make the gameplay as free as possible, without limitations, as having any artificial barriers gets old very quickly.
Where to start though?
As a basis they might look at what was previously done with Star Wars: Galaxies (the good years), Battlefront II, Fallen Order, and Knights of the Old Republic, and expand from there. Hopefully they will be getting feedback and suggestions from hardcore fans of the various games that have appeared over the past 40 years, to create something new, and they won’t just try and reskin and adapt an old idea.
The enthusiasm for the Mandalorian series and the upcoming shows such as Andor, Ahsoka, The Book of Boba Fett, Lando, and Rangers of the New Republic, has created an opportunity to go all out and create something truly great. People are hungry for new and innovative storytelling in this universe, so there is scope for trying something and not playing it too safe.
The next question would be ‘when would it be set’?
The first guess would be that Ubisoft may well opt to set it after the The Rise of Skywalker, so that players can continue the story within the universe as it currently stands. This way, it would avoid having to match up with any existing Canon, but care would have to be taken not to enshrine anything that would later clash with any new film.
But is this the most interesting time to visit? The success of Rogue One, and The Mandalorian has indicated that there would be ample scope for turning to an earlier period. A game placed either around the Battle of Yavin or in the post-ROTJ era would gain a lot of support. Any ideas that were in the Republic Era (Prequel territory) would likely not be popular, but potentially they could go further back, to a period during the Fall of the Old Republic.
Finally, what kind of galactic scope could the game have?
You could go incredibly broad, and use a system that created infinite planets, but much more likely would be to confine the player to the known galaxy and a set number of planets. Depending on the era chosen to place it, the story mode would need to be carefully crafted to not create issues later, but this is perfectly doable.
If they get worried about having to cope with something too expansive, they may want to confine the story mode to specific planets and make each of them their own ‘open world’. This would make things easier to manage, but the promise of an ‘open world’ game would be diluted and players would feel a bit cheated.
But this is all conjecture…
Ultimately, we know nothing so far, but it is interesting nonetheless to speculate. Comment sections, forums and subreddits will be brimming with ideas already, and Ubisoft / Massive will no doubt be taking note. Given the long gestation of a game like this it will be some time before we get our answers, but with any luck it will be worth it.
