Open-World Star Wars game being developed by Ubisoft Massive Entertainment

[Marcello]

Lucasfilm Games' New Partnerships Mean the Galaxy's the Limit

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Today, Lucasfilm Games announced that it’s entering a partnership with Ubisoft to create an open-world Star Wars game. The title will be developed by Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment, marking the first time that a company outside of EA has produced a Star Wars game since Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, ending nearly eight years of exclusivity. Also in the works is a new Indiana Jones game, to be developed by Bethesda Game Studios, a newcomer to Lucasfilm’s and Disney’s properties.

Let’s start with Star Wars. Development on this new title is still very early—Massive is still recruiting for the project even—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 use Massive’s Snowdrop engine. Beyond that, Lucasfilm Games hasn’t 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 partnering with Bethesda to create an Indiana Jones title, the first non-Star Wars AAA game out of Lucasfilm in years. The move marks a seismic shift for Lucasfilm’s approach to gaming, widening the tent for developers that want to create games using 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 seems like either that was misstated or the clock has run out early. (Lucasfilm would not confirm for WIRED either way.) Regardless, EA will keep making games in the future, but Lucasfilm Games is free to seek other partners.

“EA has been and will continue to be a very strategic and important partner for us now and going forward,” Sean Shoptaw, senior vice president of Global Games and Interactive Experiences at Disney, told WIRED. “But we did feel like there's room for others.”

https://www.wired.com/story/lucasfilm-games-star-wars-ubisoft-indiana-jones-bethesda/

Never played a game fully from Massive, but I like Assassin's Creed from Ubisoft, so if I can get a Star Wars in a similar style I'd be pretty happy. I'd be pretty disappointed if it's multiplayer focused.

I know plenty of people hate Ubisoft, and will yell out generic tower jokes, but the more interesting part about this announcement is that the EA exclusivity deal was supposed to go for two more years, but it's ended early now. Hopefully, we get some more partnerships soon.

Now all Lucasfilm Games has to do is partner with Microsoft to get Obsidian to make a new Star Wars RPG. That'd be a dream come true to me.

[Solister]

What an interesting time to be a Star Wars/Indiana Jones fan. A bunch of series announced, Battlefront II (2017) for free tomorrow at Epic and now two AAA games in development.

I can't really say something as it's been a while I don't play a new Star Wars game release, and I'm starting to believe my notebook will not be holding new releases for so long. A LEGO-like game following the entire saga, except with realistic graphics and mechanics for both franchises is probably my dream, but maybe would be nice to exit the movies surface, especially with the disapproval of Sequels and LEGO Skywalker Saga just around the corner.

Eh, it's still very preliminary information, as if they just decided the theme of their next game, but already a reason to create hype and expect the better.

[Marcello]

44 minutes ago, Solister said:

Eh, it's still very preliminary information, as if they just decided the theme of their next game, but already a reason to create hype and expect the better.

It's more to start hiring more people, without the danger of the game leaking, I think.

[DarkRula]

This is what I was hoping for when the restructuring first took place back when Disney bought LucasFilm. Plenty of games from plenty of developers, with variety of genres and styles. The future is looking bright again for Star Wars games, and hopefully some of the other IP of LucasFilm get their chance to shine.

As for this open world game of Ubisoft's, I'm hoping we see a great looking world come from it. One, perhaps, we haven't seen before.

[mayday2592]

This sounds promising, but I really wish devs would stop making announcements before they actually have something meaningful to show.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

This seems interesting.

In spite of the lack of details, an Open Works Star Wars game has a lot of things one can speculate. I wouldn’t doubt they’d take advantage of the setting to do things they wish they could do with Assassin’s Creed or their Tom Clancy games.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

On 1/13/2021 at 8:20 AM, Marcello said:

the EA exclusivity deal was supposed to go for two more years, but it's ended early now.

Honestly, that's the best news to come out of all of this.

Especially since I'm not giving Ubisoft the benefit of the doubt.