An open world Ubisoft game, a Respawn FPS, another shot for Amy Hennig, and more.
After the Star Wars videogame drought of the mid-2010s—the Battlefront games were the only big new ones for a few years there—Disney is finally starting to resaturate the PC with games set in a galaxy far, far away. There was Respawn’s Jedi: Fallen Order in 2019, Star Wars: Squadrons in 2020, and then Jedi: Survivor last month.
We’ll be showered with even more lightsabers and Babu Friks in the years to come if the current forecast holds: There are currently six big Star Wars games in development for PC that we know about. Most of them don’t even have titles yet (get ready to see a bunch of teaser pictures that say “Star Wars”), so we may be waiting a while to play them, but I bet we’ll see one or two of them during the “don’t-call-it-E3-anymore” press conference season this June.
Here’s what we know about all the Star Wars games in development now:
Ubisoft’s open world Star Wars game
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
Developer: Massive Entertainment | Star Wars era: Unknown
This untitled project is “a new story-driven open-world videogame set in the Star Wars galaxy,” according to Ubisoft. It’s being developed by Massive Entertainment, the Swedish studio that made The Division series, and is built on the Snowdrop Engine, which has been used for a number of dissimilar Ubisoft projects. Aside from The Division games, that’s included South Park: The Fractured But Whole and Rocksmith+.
Massive’s next game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, will probably give us the best picture of what this Star Wars game might be like: It’s a first-person action-adventure take on James Cameron’s sci-fi epics, also built in Snowdrop.
Star Wars Eclipse
Developer: Quantic Dream | Star Wars era: High Republic
A branching narrative game from Quantic Dream, the French studio responsible for Detroit: Become Human and Heavy Rain. The studio’s work is known for a certain hamfistedness that can alternate between endearing and comical, which isn’t necessarily a bad fit for Star Wars.
Eclipse is set in Star Wars’ High Republic era, and Quantic Dream calls it an “intricately branching action-adventure game that can be experienced in many ways, and puts the destinies of multiple playable characters in your hands.”
“Choices have consequences,” the studio writes. “Every decision you make can have dramatic repercussions on your journey: alter your relationships, the locations you visit, the battles you fight, and even the fate of the characters themselves. The way of life in the Outer Rim is being threatened and you must define your path: become the architect of a devastating war, a peacemaker who will restore balance, or something else altogether.”
Quantic Dream’s last game, Detroit: Become Human, was widely praised when it released on consoles in 2018, but also criticized for the studio’s characteristic clumsiness. When it came to PC in 2020, we called it “a game with very high production values, of which only one third is ever truly enjoyable.”
Eclipse doesn’t have a release date, but there’s an official site with a little more info.
Respawn’s Star Wars FPS
(Image credit: Respawn)
Developer: Respawn | Star Wars era: Unknown
Along with Jedi: Survivor, which we liked despite its technical problems and criminal colon placement, Respawn has been working on a Star Wars FPS. The shooter was announced last year alongside the next game on this list, and development is being led by Peter Hirschmann, who’s been involved in making Star Wars games since the original Battlefront in 2004.
In the announcement, EA said that work on the new FPS had “just begun,” so we probably won’t hear more about it soon.
Star Wars strategy game from an ex-Firaxis dev
Developer: Bit Reactor | Star Wars era: Unknown
Respawn is also producing a Star Wars strategy game that’s being developed by new studio Bit Reactor, which was established by XCOM and XCOM 2 art director Greg Foertsch. And that’s all we know about that.
Amy Hennig’s second crack at it
(Image credit: Skydance New Media)
Developer: Skydance | Star Wars era: Unknown
Uncharted creative director Amy Hennig’s first Star Wars project, codenamed Project Ragtag, was famously cancelled by EA, and all we’ve seen of it is some tantalizing test footage. Now Hennig is at it again as the head of Skydance New Media, a games division in the film and television production company that’s co-produced movies such as Annihilation, Terminator: Dark Fate, the last two Star Treks, and Top Gun: Maverick.
Skydance says the project is a “richly cinematic action-adventure game”—so, like Uncharted—with an original story. There’s no indication of when it’ll be out, and it was only announced last year, so it could be a while. Skydance New Media is also working on a Marvel game.
Knights of the Old Republic remake
Developer: Not sure? | Star Wars era: New Republic (ha ha, just kidding)
Bloomberg reported last year that development of the upcoming Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake had hit some turbulence, and that Embracer Group had moved the project from Aspyr Media, a studio in Austin, to one of Saber Interactive’s other studios in Europe. Embracer hasn’t explicitly confirmed the move, but as far as we know, that’s where things are at: the KotOR remake is still in development, just not at the studio originally tasked with it.
When the KotOR remake was first announced as an Aspyr Media project, we learned that a number of former BioWare developers were working at the studio, including some of KotOR’s original developers. Most, but not all, of those developers have since left Aspyr, including three former BioWare writers who had been working on the remake—so, yep, it’s pretty clear that Aspryr and the ex-BioWare crew it gathered aren’t working on this game anymore.
It’s a big responsibility to remake not only one of the most beloved Star Wars games, but also one of the most beloved BioWare games, so whoever’s making it can look forward to having their work scrutinized to pieces. For more, we wrote about why we’re excited to revisit KotOR a couple years ago.
Star Wars: Hunters (not on PC)
Developer: Zynga | Star Wars era: The New Republic
For the sake of comprehensiveness, there’s also Star Wars: Hunters, a free-to-play PvP action game coming from Zynga this year, but it’s only releasing on Nintendo Switch and phones.
My imaginary droid repair shop simulator starring Babu Frik, the only good thing from Rise of Skywalker
(Image credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.)
This game doesn’t actually exist, but if Disney had any sense, it’d get right on it.
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