The Star Wars universe is hard to capture in a single video game, considering its sprawling web of media and millenia-long history. Even so, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga plans on taking a big bite out of Star Wars lore. In LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, fans will have the opportunity to play through all nine of the core Star Wars movies, bringing the franchise to life in 45 levels. While that's a great achievement, The Skywalker Saga still misses out on a ton of compelling recent Star Wars stories, many of which have been told through TV shows rather than movies.
LEGO Star Wars has touched on one of these shows before thanks to LEGO Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars, but there's another show that deserves the same treatment. Star Wars: Rebels, a Disney XD show taking heavy inspiration from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, tells the story of the rising rebellion against the tyrannical Empire, only a few years before the events of the original Star Wars trilogy. Rebels takes Star Wars fans to all kinds of unique locations while focusing on a diverse, compelling cast of characters, and there's more than enough seasons of the show to inspire a full LEGO Star Wars title.
The Case for LEGO Star Wars: Rebels
The settings of various Star Wars: Rebels episodes serve as good motivation to give the show a LEGO Star Wars game. A lot of the planets showcased in Rebels either don't appear in the main franchise or serve secondary roles to planets that are significantly more important like Tatooine and Coruscant. For instance, the Outer Rim world of Lothal plays a central part in Rebels, as does its desolate neighbor Atollon. Rebels also features a lot of visits to largely uncharted locations like the Empire's factories and academies. These places would all make great settings for brand-new LEGO Star Wars levels that are refreshingly different from their predecessors.
Rebels' cast of characters is also perfect for a LEGO game. In most LEGO titles, it's often important that the playable characters in Story Mode have different abilities in order to produce compelling puzzles for the player. From Kanan's Force sensitivity to Zeb's imposing physical strength to Sabine's knowledge of explosives, the main protagonists of Rebels are perfect for a LEGO Star Wars game. Rebels also provides plenty of compelling antagonists to turn into bosses, like Darth Vader's band of Inquisitors and the recurring Imperial operative Agent Kallus.
The Next Step for LEGO Star Wars
Even though LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga encompasses vast swaths of the Star Wars galaxy, it doesn't touch on every Star Wars story, even with its DLCs. Notably, The Skywalker Saga's list of DLCs doesn't include characters from Star Wars: The Clone Wars or Star Wars: Rebels, even though both of these shows have done a lot to shape Star Wars canon in recent years. That could be a good thing, though. Maybe Traveller's Tales does have plans to make a game based on one or both of these shows, and it would rather save those characters for a full game, rather than a DLC.
Of course, if Star Wars: Rebels is ever going to get a LEGO Star Wars game, Traveller's Tales has to finish The Skywalker Saga first. Thankfully there's new cause for optimism that its development cycle will be over soon. New sources claim that The Skywalker Saga will release in April or May of 2022, meaning it's on track for the spring 2022 window that Traveller's Tales last promised. The Skywalker Saga is an exciting game on its own, but what it means for the future of LEGO Star Wars is important too. Once Traveller's Tales finishes its current project, there may be hope that Star Wars: Rebels gets a game next.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga releases in spring 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.