On Monday, Disney announced that it would be releasing new games based on Lucasfilm properties under the “Lucasfilm Games” banner, a throwback to the classic developer later dubbed LucasArts. While the announcement at first seemed small, it was later quickly followed bythe announcement of an upcomingIndiana JonesgamefromWolfensteindeveloper Machine Games and publisher Bethesda. Now, less than 24 hours after that announcement, Lucasfilm Games has announced that it is teaming up with Ubisoft to develop an open-worldStar Warsgame.
This announcement comes via a report from Wired, which revealed that Ubisoft Massive, the developer behind titles such asThe Division 2andThe Crew 2. The game will make use of Ubisoft’s Snowdrop engine, the tool used to create titles such asThe Division 2,Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, andSouth Park: The Fractured But Whole. The studio is still hiring for theStar Warstitle, with no information as to whether it will have a single-player or multiplayer focus.
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This is the firstStar Warsgameoutside of theLego Star Warsseriesto released outside of EA and Disney’s agreement which saw the publisher exclusively releasing games in theStar Warsfranchise for an undisclosed number of years. This agreement lead to the creation (and in some cases controversy) of games such asStar Wars: Battlefrontand its sequel,Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, andStar Wars: Squadrons. During this time EA had also canceled multipleStar Warsgames in development such as titles from Visceral Games (codenamed “Project Ragtag”) and another from EA Vancouver tentatively titled “Orca.”
Until now, it had been speculated that EA’sexclusivity over theStar Warsfranchisewould be in effect until 2023, 10 years after the company signed the deal with Disney. Commenting on the company’s separation from EA, vice president of Global Games and Interactive Experiences at Disney stated to Wired “EA has been and will continue to be a very strategic and important partner for us now and going forward, but we did feel like there’s room for others.”
It would seem, the creation of the Lucasfilm Games banner implies that EA’s exclusive publishing rights toStar Warsgame have expired early. While the company will likely still release titlessuch asStar Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 2in the coming years, this collaboration with Ubisoft likely means that fans will begin to see a larger breadth ofStar Warsgames from a variety of developers and publishers across many consoles.
Ubisoft Massive’s open-worldStar Warsgame is current in development.
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