It's official, Electronic Arts no longer has the exclusive license to make Star Wars games. Ending the 10 year exclusivity deal EA gained back in 2013 a couple years early. Many suspected this with the creation of Lucasfilm Games, but it is now confirmed with Ubisoft making an open world Star Wars game and that Bethesda will be working on an Indiana Jones game.
https://www.starwars.com/news/lucasfilm-games-interview

Hopefully this means many other companies will get a crack at the Star Wars universe. One of the worst things about EA is they've sat on the license and haven't made many games. A big issue was a mandate at the company that all games be live service which really restricted the types of games that could be made until they did away with it and made Jedi Fallen Order. Hopefully with the new Lucasfilm games publishing house(still don't understand why it's not called Lucasarts) they can get the license to all sorts of different companies and make all sorts of different games. Maybe we'll finally see remakes and sequels to games like Republic Commando, Jedi Knight, Empire at War and Knights of the Old Republic. One of them might be crazy enough to make a new Podracer game like I've been hoping they would.

 

Bethesda Indy game
Ubisoft SW game
Still Fallen Order 2

 

On the one hand, I wholeheartedly agree with EA losing exclusivity. It wasn't healthy for one publisher to monopolize something like this, and now we finally have a crack of returning to some semblance to the better years of SW gaming where variety was the spice of things.

On the other hand...Ubisoft, whose recent output has mostly fallen into that category of rather samey 'eh, fine I guess' titles, may not be the best one to inject fresh life into this area...but I'll still wait and see for now.

 

I completely agree with this decision. I can't wait to get more Star Wars games.

HOWEVER. I DO have an issue with the studios they've seemingly chosen to take up the banner. Ubisoft had a huge sexual abuse scandal less than six months ago, and Bethesda is Bethesda. I really wish that we'd hear about more smaller Indie or AA studios taking on projects, instead of just the huge publishers.

 

Disney is sticking with AAA studios that’s where they think the money is

 

Well yeah, duh. They're a huge corportation, and they only care about their bottom line. But it's just such a narrow view of the industry, especially when other franchises, like Warhammer, have shown that you can absolutely make great smaller games and gain an audience.

 

I can't even imagine the reaction if a Fallout76 or Cyberpunk level debacle happened with a Star Wars game.

 

We don't need to. It already did happen.

 

ha, beat u to the punch, nerd

 

Yeah I mean it prompted a lawmaker to call it a "Star Wars-themed online casino" aimed at kids.

 

I would love to get an open-world Star Wars game, but I'm not 100% confident Ubisoft can do it. Making a fantasy scifi open-world is much tougher than doing the historical settings they're used to. Beyond Good and Evil 2 seems to be an incredibly ambitious attempt at this, and they did a similar thing with Star Wars it could be spectacular, but that game's development has been quite murky, not sure exactly where it's going.

 

Ubisoft open world Star Wars game sounds very good to me. Though the only thing I've played from Massive Entertainment is Far Cry 3, and though enjoyable at first, I had issues with it that led to me just never going back to the game.

 

My big worry is just that it's going to be really bland, uninteresting, and formulaic. That's been the whole meme about Ubisoft open world games for years now. Their output varies a lot by studio, but it looks like the one working on this game is the same team who did The Division, so... that's either a very good thing or a very bad thing depending on who you ask.

Also, you know, widespread corporate sexual misconduct scandal.

 

Why make Lucasfilm games instead of bringing Lucasarts back from the dead?

 

Not sure of the differences in Ubisoft teams, is the Immortals one the team working SW? Or a different team?

Also for the love of everything give us Remasters (or remakes idc) of KOTOR/TSL.

 

It's The Division team.

 

Having played 1 and 2:

****

 

I brought up the same two misgivings in the Forceboat thread. The Ubisoft approach to "open world" is not the best. And the complete lack of accountability for their sexual misconduct scandal has made it so I haven't considered purchasing another one of their games. They make the other lying, crunch-happy AAA publishers look like good little schoolchildren in comparison, and most "games journalists" have been content to move on.

 

That was the original name of Lucasarts.
And Lucasarts was a fluke because Lucas and LFL forgot its existence, allowing them to flourish creatively and publish amazing games. That boat has sailed.

 

Thanks I didn’t know

 

It's also easy to forget that Lucasarts what something of a money sink. During the period from 2000 to 2004, when some great games like Kotor and Rogue Squadron 2 were released, the company was apparently a mess, and they were losing money.

 

Yoda Stories 2 or we riot.

 

I remember marking the release of the Episode I video game as the beginning of the end.