Today, Lucasfilm Games has announced it is partnering with Ubisoft to create an open-world Star Wars game. The title will be developed by Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment, which marks the first time a company outside of EA has produced a Star Wars game since Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, ending nearly eight years of exclusivity. A new Indiana Jones game is also under development, which will be developed by Bethesda Game Studios, a newcomer to the Lucasfilm and Disney properties.
Let’s start with Star Wars. The development of this new title is very early – Massive is even recruiting for the project – so details are sparse. Julian Gerighty, director of The Division 2 and The crew, will serve as the game’s creative director and the title will utilize Massive’s Snowdrop engine. Furthermore, Lucasfilm Games has not revealed anything about the characters or settings within the Star Wars universe that the game will feature.
This announcement follows yesterday’s news that Lucasfilm is teaming up with Bethesda to create an Indiana Jones title, Lucasfilm’s first non-Star Wars AAA game in years. The move marks a seismic shift for Lucasfilm’s approach to gaming, broadening the tent for developers looking to make games with Lucasfilm franchises, particularly in the Star Wars universe.
While EA had previously suggested that the company would have exclusivity on Star Wars games for 10 years, it appears that that was either a misrepresentation or that the clock is up early. (Lucasfilm wouldn’t confirm it for WIRED anyway.) EA will continue to make games anyway in the future, but Lucasfilm Games is free to seek other partners.
“EA is and will remain a very strategic and important partner for us now and in the future,” Sean Shoptaw, senior vice president of Global Games and Interactive Experiences at Disney, told WIRED. “But we did have the feeling that there is room for others.”
In 2013, Disney fired 150 employees at LucasArts, ending in-house game development. The rationale at the time was that the move would “minimize the company’s risk while creating a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games,” said a statement the company made to The Hollywood Reporter at that moment.
In the years since, however, EA’s exclusivity agreement has been criticized as a bottleneck for that purpose. Aside from some small mobile or VR games, EA’s number of major Star Wars games since 2013 can be counted on one hand. By allowing more developers to bring in their game ideas, Lucasfilm hopes to diversify the range of titles.
“I think when you look at the games landscape, it’s such a diverse population of people around the world who make games,” explains Shoptaw. “For us to capture the amount of quality that exists in the world and get to market quickly, it would be a great challenge for us to do that internally.”
As with previous EA games, all new Star Wars games will be part of the same Star Wars canon and continuity shared by all movies and TV shows produced since the Disney acquisition. James Waugh, Lucasfilm’s VP of franchise content and strategy, explains that while this means games don’t always connect directly to content in other media, the possibility is on the table.
“I think what people stumble upon is sometimes like, ‘Oh, then has to connect with everything else. And that’s not necessarily what we always say, ”Waugh told WIRED. “That will happen if it is right for that story.”
This new, non-exclusive arrangement for Star Wars games – as well as the rest of Lucasfilm’s library of franchises – leaves the door open for developers to pitch their own story ideas to Lucasfilm Games. “We are not short of people knocking on our door who want to play with our toys,” Douglas Reilly, VP of Lucasfilm Games, told WIRED.
Below that camp is Todd Howard. The famous director of Skyrim (among many other games) is also a huge one Indiana Jones fan. “The most inspiring thing about the Indy game in particular is that it is a passion project for Todd Howard,” explains Waugh. “He came in with a point of view and a story that he really believes in.”
Of course, these franchises are still, in Reilly’s words, Lucasfilm’s toys. “In the end, we have final approval on everything,” explained Reilly. While developers – including, but no longer exclusive to EA – have the freedom to pitch story ideas to the company, those developers still play in the Disney playhouse.
Keeping gamers and developers alike within that playhouse seems to be the ultimate goal of the recently renamed Lucasfilm Games. Video games are increasingly competing for leisure and entertainment with film and TV. Disney has a long history of dominating film and TV vying for the consumer’s eye, but it lacks the same level of video game experience. By harnessing the talent of outside studios, consumers could spend many more hours of the day in the company’s sprawling franchises than if Disney relied solely on film and TV.
A single story-driven game can last tens of hours. An open world game, like the kind Ubisoft is making with Lucasfilm Games, can potentially take hundreds of hours, depending on how long a player wants to explore. “It really depends on why we do what we do, because these are huge entertainment experiences that last many hours, much longer than movies,” Shoptaw explained.