Lucasfilm Games is new identity for future titles

[Circa]

Or as many people will call it: the return of LucasArts under a new name.

Source: StarWars.com

They announced this sort of "rebrand" today as the main IP behind all Star Wars and other Lucasfilm properties going forward. Of course, this doesn't necessary mean that they will be publishing their own games again, but this does mean they could be planning to license out more games beyond just EA's contract. We already see that in the case of the Lego Star Wars games. This could be a very good start in the right direction.

Notice how they gave a very short glimpse at Jedi Academy at the end of their sizzle reel. I think that was just to highlight the recent re-release on Nintendo Switch and PS4 and it's one of the biggest fan-favorites, but it's still interesting they bothered at all. They also had a lot of KOTOR characters shown in the Galaxy of Heroes spot, which is also an interesting choice.

[Apprentice]

They should've never dismantled LucasArts to begin with and I certainly hope this iteration will make non-Star Wars games as well. The old LucasArts has given us Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, to name a few and I certainly hope we'll be treated on more . . .

[Circa]

5 hours ago, Apprentice said:

They should've never dismantled LucasArts to begin with and I certainly hope this iteration will make non-Star Wars games as well. The old LucasArts has given us Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, to name a few and I certainly hope we'll be treated on more . . .

Well they just announced a new Indiana Jones game being developed by Bethesda’s studio Machine Games. So it’s looking likely we will be getting even more.

 

[Apprentice]

O dear . . .

 

With MachineGames's latest installments in the Wolfenstein franchise and Todd Howard's "it just works", I am certainly not that optimistic . . .

[Circa]

They just announced a new non-EA game, an open world Star Wars game, developed by Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment (The Division). Extremely excited! Ubisoft isn’t perfect, but I think Massive is probably one of their best studios in terms of game vision, ability, and dedication.
 

 

[Stoiss]

6 hours ago, Circa said:

They just announced a new non-EA game, an open world Star Wars game, developed by Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment (The Division). Extremely excited! Ubisoft isn’t perfect, but I think Massive is probably one of their best studios in terms of game vision, ability, and dedication.
 

 

as long as they keep there time saves for them self, and out of there game, and don't force there player base to grind their ass off to get some martial to buy some gear sets or force to buy it through micro transactions that is cut content like they have done with the last 3 assassin's creed games and breakpoint for that matter with scummy micro transactions. im fine with that Ubisoft gets a chance to make a star wars game. but remember Ubisoft is no different from how EA is when it comes to micro transactions. as long its just skins im fine with it, but they have just not proved that they could do a live service game or a single player game without micro transactions in the scummy way they do it. but this is just my opinion on it. so lets hope Disney still have the voice to keep this in tact so it dosnt end up like Battlefront 2 ended 🙂

[Circa]

Article about a lot this, and basically states the exclusivity deal with EA is now over, though they will still be making Star Wars games.

https://www.starwars.com/news/lucasfilm-games-interview

[Bubbles]

Fantastic.

Hopefully now that EA has some competition that will give them a bit of a kick up the ass.

[Apprentice]

On 1/14/2021 at 9:53 PM, Bubbles said:

Hopefully now that EA has some competition that will give them a bit of a kick up the ass.

 

😁

[Bubbles]

I dont think it is wishful.

The guys making it are the same guys who made the division 1 and 2 games.

They are using the same game engine as well Snowdrop engine.

Im hoping it will just be like the division 2 in the star wars universe. Like you can team up with a squad in an open world and just explore and do quests. Be a bit like Kotor online. I imagine that would have many opportunities for clans to thrive as well.

The biggest issue is Jedi though. It is always a struggling implenting Jedi with other classes without them breaking the game. I think the only game that has ever done that right is Star Wars Galaxies pre nerf.

You could argue swtor did it right but the problem with swtor is that everyone is basically a jedi. Which detracts from the feeling the being a jedi/sith is special. Also the game is balanced so a trooper could kill a jedi in a 1v1 which is just not right.

 

Idk thats my rambling.

[Apprentice]

You make an interesting argument, however I look at other aspects other then 'what it can become'.

If there is one thing that has plagued us players in the last five or six years, is the amount of controversy surrounding the release(s) of major AAA title(s). In the last five or six years, there has not been a release that was botched up in one way or another. Either the end-result was filled with bugs in such way that the title was clearly not ready to be released at that particular moment (Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 76) or received a lot backlash due to its micro-transactions implementation, making it a pay-2-win game (Battlefront II) and if that doesn't "happen", you can have the problem that the authentication servers are all flattened due to overload (Assassin's Creed Unity IIRC).

This unfortunately cannot should not be ignored by us and unfortunately, it will happen again with the new announced Star Wars titles even if they are not published by EA. Game developers can and will get away with this because of a) there is no consumer regulations regarding this and b) people will continue to pre-order the game, making a steady revenue for the developers to do as they please. This is one of the major reasons why I don't buy full priced games anymore, I'm not going to spend 60 dollars in order to publicly beta-test a triple-A game and that is my rambling . . . 😉

[Bubbles]

100% right. I never preorder.

 

I have a bit of hope though. Mainly because Ubisoft will want that exclusivity contract. EA has lost Disney's trust a bit. If I was Ubisoft I'd make sure to knock the ball out of the park with this game.

Star wars games are a huge money maker. So either way now EA has competition, hopefully the games will get a lot better.

 

[NumberWan]

Well, competition is always good. Now, that EA aren't the monopolists, the games might actually look at least slightly different and be as good as during the golden era (which I consider to be somewhere between Dark Forces release and Revenge of the Sith). EA might have experience with Bioware, but Ubisoft made open world of different style, like Chicago in Watch Dogs and Ancient Egypt in AC: Origins. Personally it was GTA San Andreas that made me think – why Lucasarts wouldn't want to release something as massive as that game at the time.

And I don't count SW Galaxies and SWTOR. 

I feel excited for the new Indiana Jones game even more than for Star Wars: this one would be made by the guys, who created the latest Wolfenstein games. 
And this might be a cool challenge.

[Circa]

On 1/16/2021 at 7:53 AM, Bubbles said:

I have a bit of hope though. Mainly because Ubisoft will want that exclusivity contract. EA has lost Disney's trust a bit. If I was Ubisoft I'd make sure to knock the ball out of the park with this game.

 

I think Lucasfilm learned it's lesson with exclusivity deals. I highly doubt Ubisoft is getting one. There will be more to gain by licensing out to developers individually like LucasArts did rather than give it all to one publisher. EA only has so many studios, which all have their own various IP's to make games for as well. I think EA did better than expected, but not nearly as well as if we had other developers outside of their roster making games as well. I think that deal was made by the highest person on the food chain at the time (Iger) and knew EA was the biggest game publisher and had huge IP's, while also already had a relationship with Lucasfilm through SWTOR, so he probably just signed the deal without much consideration or knowledge of EA. Yet now, with Iger gone, Lucasfilm has learned from a lot of mistakes under him and on their own, this whole Lucasfilm Games rebranding and launch pretty much solidifies that they are going to license to whatever studio they want, after the EA deal is up in 2 years. This Ubisoft one is just the first to be announced so far, because it's going to be hard to hide the fact that Massive isn't working on a Division 3 or The Crew 3, but also I'm sure it's planned to take 2 years to develop and release (isn't a lot of time by today's standards, so that's a little worrying).

They said they aren't done announcing new games, so I'm curious what else they've got to show us in the coming weeks and months.