It feels like fans of the LEGO Star Wars games have been waiting forever for the release of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. The anthology of the nine main Star Wars movies into one LEGO game was announced at E3 in 2019, two years ago now. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has been in development for some time and has had some setbacks, which is something that should not be surprising considering how much life has been affected by the global pandemic.
While the game was supposed to come out earlier this year after some delays, it once again got pushed back with no concrete release date announced. In the long run, this is probably a good thing to guarantee the best game possible. For fans of both the LEGO games and Star Wars, it might not be best to hold out hope for extra content though. There are a lot of stories that crossover into the main Skywalker Saga, but many of them will likely not be tapped into for the upcoming LEGO game's story content.
Solo: A Star Wars Story
As fun as Solo: A Star Wars Story was, its story is confirmed not to be in the upcoming LEGO Skywalker Saga game. It is true that Han Solo is deeply connected to the Skywalkers, with Harrison Ford playing Solo in five different Star Wars films, but his origin story is not integral to the Skywalkers. Solo is one of the character packs announced for DLC, meaning while players will get to run around as a younger Solo, they won't be playing it in the main game.
Story-wise, this is fine. With the intended focus being on the Skywalker family, Anakin, Leia, Luke, and Rey, there will not be much of a need to add on more Star Wars stories. In the future, it would be nice to see a collection of Star Wars stories like Solo given the LEGO treatment, but now does not seem like the best time to shoehorn them into the game.
Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars Resistance
Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars Resistance are both integral parts of the rebel story, and while the former ties heavily into Anakin Skywalker’s time as the Sith Lord Darth Vader, they too are being passed up. Both series are being introduced as character packs, much like the aforementioned Solo and even The Bad Batch will be, but their stories are rather separate from the main Skywalker Saga.
Star Wars Resistance itself is entirely after the time of the Empire and deals with the rising threat of the First Order. While the span of time between the Order’s development of superweapons and the rebirth of Darth Sidious on Exegol is important lore-wise, it does not maintain a direct connection to the Skywalkers. Resistance could be included with another anthology series, but its disconnect from the Skywalkers makes it guaranteed that it will not be used for the LEGO Skywalker Saga game.
Star Wars Rebels ,on the other hand, exists in a complicated space. While the show is not primarily focused on Darth Vader or Ahsoka Tano, it still has one of the most important parts of their interconnected story. In Rebels, the story between Ahsoka and Vader reaches its pinnacle and forces Anakin’s former Padawan to come to terms with the Sith Lord he has become.
Genndy Tartakovsky' Star Wars: Clone Wars
Some people may not remember this specific Star Wars: Clone Wars show, but it was the first series to release post-2000 for the Star Wars franchise. While the show has been relegated to the Star Wars Legends arm of lore, it was a notable project at the time. Developed by Genndy Tartakovsky, the same person behind Samurai Jack, it aired on Cartoon Network with a similar visual style to the time-traveling samurai show. The unique style was bold and some of the animated design elements carried over to the later Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated movie and show.
Part of the reason the Tartakovsky show has fallen out of much of the collective consciousness is the same reason it is unlikely to be brought up for LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. When the separation between Star Wars Canon and Star Wars Legends happened, the Tartakovsky Clone Wars show lost a lot of its story relevance to Star Wars: The Clone Wars. While both shows were well done and added to the Star Wars universe, likely, only one of them was ever going to make it into the canon. And obviously, this would apply to any and all legends content too; players shouldn't expect even an Easter egg for beloved content like Mara Jade.
New Star Wars Shows and Movies
Counting comics, miniseries, novels, live-action shows like Andor, and other media there are countless different forms of Star Wars stories that are probably being overlooked in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. While many of them intertwine and are relevant to the Skywalkers in some way thanks to the three generations of Force users that fit into the family, not all of them are prominent enough to fit into the game.
The other problem is that some important stories are just not out yet. The Star Wars franchise has announced a ton of Star Wars TV and streaming series on top of movies to premiere over the next few years. Because of the times that many of the adaptations take place, more likely than not Skywalkers or characters important to them will appear. Because these are so far out though, there is no real chance that they will appear in the new LEGO game. These include shows like
- The Book of Bobba Fett
- Visions
- Andor
- Obi-Wan Kenobi
- The Mandalorian (Season 3)
- Rogue Squadron
- Ahsoka
- Rangers of the New Republic
- The Acolyte
- Lando
- A Droid Story
It'll be interesting to see if there is any sort of crossover content when these do release, but as it stands, it does seem unlikely. Unlike Battlefront, this sort of game doesn't need constant support and connection to forthcoming movies.
Future Star Wars games can still tap into these stories though. The LEGO Star Wars series has been entertaining gamers for two generations now. The adaptations of the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy were turned into comedic action platformers that could appeal to players of almost any age. Hopefully, the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga will not mean that fans of the series will have to wait for too long after LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga finally releases to see more Star Wars stories adapted into the series.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is currently in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.