Star Wars is experiencing a huge boost in fan interest and confidence right now, with the success of The Mandalorian appearing to have been just the tip of the iceberg. A huge slate of new Star Wars shows and other projects have been announced lately, and the foray into new time periods in the long history of the galaxy far, far away could lead to new video game properties in the future.
With a slew of upcoming entries that will expand the new canon for the Star Wars franchise and several stories told both in shows like The Mandalorian and the finale of Clone Wars, there is plenty of new ground to tread for games set in the Star Wars universe. That's without even mentioning novels like Shadows Fall and Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising that released in 2020. The franchise clearly intends to begin exploring new time periods with upcoming projects like the expansive Star Wars High Republic project, yet video games would be a great place to expand on these fresh settings.
New Star Wars Content That Would Be Great to See
2020 only saw one major Star Wars video game release with the dogfighting-focused Star Wars: Squadrons back in October, while before that was the single-player adventure game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order in November 2019. Fallen Order was successful among fans for its gameplay and original story, and the journey of Cal Kestis to find a Jedi Holocron was the first single-player game for Star Wars in quite a long time. With the new year having arrived, it is fairly safe to assume there will continue to be new content for the Star Wars franchise, hopefully even in the games, as many fans are already ruminating on what to expect of a sequel to Fallen Order.
The success of The Mandalorian shows the potential for positive reception when both bounty hunting in the Star Wars and the Mandalorians themselves are given the proper treatment. The show has a progression that is very similar to many adventure games, with Din completing missions and upgrading his gear along the way. The format practically begs to be converted to an open-world adventure game either casting another Mandalorian like Din or Boba or perhaps even a customizable bounty hunter with archetypes pulled from the different canons. This, of course, could harken back to the cancelled Star Wars 1313.
An often underrepresented genre of games for Star Wars is the strategy games. The popularity of Clone Wars and characters like General Thrawn could be leveraged into large-scale battles in an RTS setting, as the diversity of unit and vehicle types available throughout the generations of Star Wars canon is staggering and would lend itself well to the strategy arena. Above all, however, is a throwback to the height of the Jedi.
The new High Republic project presents one of the most interesting new areas for potential games to take place. Set centuries before the Skywalker saga, High Republic is set to explore the golden age of the Jedi. Games that take advantage of next-gen hardware to deliver exciting lightsaber combat, perhaps set against the backdrop of a young Padawan's journey to become a Jedi Knight, would go a long way in helping solid new Star Wars games. The prevalence of Jedi in that time period also creates new opportunities to both introduce unique characters and help tie in the backstories of longer-lived Jedi like Master Yoda. After all, the history of Star Wars games has produced some of its most beloved characters, and the fresh setting only opens up new possibilities.
The plethora of new shows, novels, comics, and more Star Wars content opens up a lot of new opportunities for developers to craft new stories and experiences both focused on lightsaber fighting and mastering The Force, and on exploring the galaxy with a blaster on players' hips. The franchises plans to explore new settings in the familiar galaxy has proved to be a good step forward and hopefully games can continue to capitalize on this momentum.