Lucasfilm Games and Ubisoft have revealed plans for an open-world Star Wars game. It’s early in development and will have The Division 2 and The Crew director Julian Gerighty as its Creative Director. The untitled open-world Star Wars game will run on Ubisoft’s Snowdrop engine that also powers The Division 2 and Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle.
This will be Disney’s first major non-EA Star Wars game in eight years.
“Electronic Arts has been and will continue to be a very strategic and important partner for us now and going forward,” said Sean Shopaw, Senior vice President of Global Games and Interactive Experiences at Disney. “But we did feel like there’s room for others.”
The news was first revealed on Wired (via Gematsu) and includes comments from Ubisoft and Lucasfilm.
“The Star Wars galaxy is an amazing source of motivation for our teams to innovate and push the boundaries of our medium,” said Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft Co-Founder and CEO. “Building new worlds, characters and stories that will become lasting parts of the Star Wars lore is an incredible opportunity for us, and we are excited to have our Ubisoft Massive studio working closely with Lucasfilm Games to create an original Star Wars adventure that is different from anything that has been done before.”
“As we look to the next 50 years of Lucasfilm, we look forward to continuing the wonderful legacy in games, which has introduced so many memorable characters and stories,” said Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm President. “These new collaborations will allow the Lucasfilm Games team to pursue fresh and exciting directions in the storytelling of Star Wars and Indiana Jones in imaginative and different ways than those explored by our films.”
It’ll be interesting to see what the collaboration brings. Recent Star Wars games barring the excellent Jedi Fallen Order have had a mixed reception. Perhaps Ubisoft’s open-world expertise changes that.
