The Star Wars franchise is a cultural phenomenon the likes of which the world has rarely seen. Its reach has spread beyond the initial films into every corner of culture, including books, comics, TV shows, board games, and video games. From the initial arcade games in the 1980s to more recent offerings like the critically acclaimed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, there has been a veritable feast of Star Wars games that fans have enjoyed for decades that have spanned multiple genres and platforms. Despite the breadth of titles on offer, there have been some aspects of the canon that most games have tended to stay away from.
It has become an ongoing joke among the Star Wars fandom that the Prequel Trilogy contains some poorer examples of the franchise's films, and they were pretty universally derided until recently. Now, particularly after the popular Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series, the Prequel Trilogy has begun to be reappraised by modern audiences. The initial poor reputation of the prequels could be the reason why the majority of Star Wars video games have tended to stay away from this time period within the narrative canon, but future titles should try to embrace these stories and significant events like the Clone Wars.
The Clone Wars In Star Wars Canon
Fans will probably be most familiar with the Clone Wars from the second prequel film, Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. There is also the animated TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the follow-up series Star Wars Rebels, both of which proved popular with audiences and established a less complicated legacy than the film. They also featured fan-favorite characters like Ahsoka, who has recently found a footing outside the series in other Star Wars content.
It's undeniable that the Clone Wars are an instrumental part of Star Wars storytelling, particularly within the few decades that the films have covered. This period of time that encompasses the Skywalker Saga continues to be a peak of Star Wars narratives and is particularly important within Star Wars canon. The Clone Wars shaped the galaxy and set the foundations for the rise of the Empire, the downfall of the Jedi, and introduced some of the most recognizable antagonists into the Star Wars world.
How They've Previously Featured In Video Games
Even though there's been a bit of a trend within wider Star Wars content to focus on the stories around A New Hope onwards and to avoid the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, some previous video games have featured or focused on the Clone Wars. Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a vehicular combat game released in 2002 for the GameCube and PlayStation 2 and later the Xbox, was a relatively well-received title that focused on the titular conflict. Some Game Boy Advance games were released at a similar time, Star Wars: Episode 2 – Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: The New Droid Army, which weren't received too warmly by fans.
These were part of a plethora of games released around the time of the second film in the Prequel Trilogy which served as tie-ins for the movie. The RTS Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds also released Clone Campaigns, an expansion pack that coincided with the launch of the film and covered the first few months of the Clone Wars, as well as adding two new factions and campaigns. While there was a flurry of Clone Wars-related content in the early 2000s, things quickly dried up after that as both the Star Wars universe and fans moved on.
Another batch of games set during the conflict was released around the time the 2008 TV series launched, like Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Lightsaber Duels, but again Star Wars video games moved onto greener pastures as the Clone Wars was left out of a lot of later video game content. However, now seems like the perfect time for Star Wars games to revisit this seminal conflict and bring the Clone Wars back to the forefront.
How the Clone Wars Could Be Used Moving Forward
One criticism that fans might have of Star Wars video games, alongside a lot of the other content, is that it focuses on a relatively small window of time that retreads the same narrative pathways across just a few decades. There are of course exceptions, like BioWare's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the upcoming Star Wars Eclipse which will be exploring the relatively underutilized High Republic era. The popularity of BioWare's earlier title and the focus on newer titles in development shows the potential of video games exploring newer or underused corners of the Star Wars universe, and this also lays the groundwork for more Clone Wars games.
Although there have been a handful of games that have been set during this conflict, they've tended to be smaller titles, movie tie-ins, or peripheral games. There's definitely space for a more mainstream Star Wars game that either features the Clone Wars prominently or includes this pivotal conflict in some way, and thanks to the recent reappraisal of this area of Star Wars storytelling, fans seem much more open to it.
The Togruta padawan Ahsoka Tano became intrinsically linked to the Clone Wars thanks to the TV series and was one of the most popular aspects that came out of this period. She may be getting her own Disney Plus show soon, but she's yet to lead her own video game. Many fans would love the chance to play as Ahsoka and make use of her formidable lightsaber skills, and a Star Wars title that follows her during the Clone Wars and through her adventures afterward, or that even serves as a prequel to the conflict, would make a compelling game. Whether focused on Ahsoka or not, though, future Star Wars games need to give the Clone Wars their day in the sun.