Lucasfilm Games says smaller studios are part of its Star Wars plan

Lucasfilm Games is deliberately widening the pool of studios that make Star Wars games, according to VP Douglas Reilly. Speaking to The Game Business Show, he said the success of this year’s Star Wars Zero Company and Star Wars Galactic Racer, both from independent developers, fits a plan to look beyond large publishers.

Zero Company is a turn-based tactics game from Bit Reactor. Galactic Racer is a roguelite racing game from Fuse Games. GameSpot reports that both have been well received by critics and fans, and Eurogamer describes both as highly rated.

Asked whether the shift was intentional, Reilly said: “It very much is part of the strategy.” He added that big AAA games like Battlefront will always be essential, but that Star Wars can tell stories in other genres and that projects “don’t have to always be AAA; sometimes it can be AA.” He described the goal as finding the best partner for each experience.

Reilly told the show that Lucasfilm Games is “a licensing business” and no longer publishes products itself. He said the company has tried to be more flexible about whose pitches it will hear, and that it is not looking for a “top five publisher.” There is still a “high quality bar,” he said, which typically means working with more experienced teams than new ones. He also said the company is “exploring all kinds of things, large and small,” with partners that will keep surprising people.

Experience can come from a studio’s staff rather than its track record. GameSpot points to Fuse Games, which was founded by former Criterion developers who worked on Burnout, Need for Speed and the two Star Wars Battlefront games at EA.

Why it matters

Eurogamer notes that Lucasfilm Games used to give a single publisher exclusive rights to Star Wars games, and that publisher was EA. According to Eurogamer, that arrangement was often criticized for limiting both the number of games and the genres they covered. The outlet says the newer approach allows more varied games and more frequent releases.

AAA releases remain part of the picture. GameSpot notes that the Battlefront series had sold 33 million units combined as of 2019. It also compares the approach to Konami’s Silent Hill, which has had a run of releases from outside developers including Bloober Team, NeoBards Entertainment and Screen Burn Interactive.

The publicly known Star Wars slate is still small. Eurogamer lists Quantic Dream’s long-in-development Star Wars Eclipse and a third game in Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi series. Casey Hudson, formerly of Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic, is working on Fate of the Old Republic. GameSpot says that single-player RPG is being made by Arcanaut Studios, a new developer. Eurogamer adds that Saber Interactive continues to say the Knights of the Old Republic Remake is still in development.

What we don’t know yet

Reilly did not name the upcoming partners he expects to surprise people, and neither source gives a timeline for new announcements.