A Ubisoft Star Wars game developed by The Division studio, Massive Entertainment, in partnership with Disney and Lucasfilm Games. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Announced in January 2021, we don’t have much more to go on beyond the above sentence, but that hasn’t stopped us from speculating on everything we’d love to see. Now on the cusp of E3 2022, seeing more from the as-yet untitled game would be wonderful, and while we’re not holding our breath, we’ll definitely have our eyes fixed on the E3 2022 schedule as it all unfolds.
What we do know about the Ubisoft Star Wars games is that the developer signed up for the project after meeting with Disney itself, and that on the technical side of things, it’ll run on the Snowdrop Engine – the same engine you’ve seen power The Division series of games. With thoughts of what could have been with the ill-fated Star Wars 1313, coupled with our own wish list of ideas, here are five things we’d love to see from the Ubisoft Star Wars game.
Ubisoft Star Wars game: Everything we want
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1. A fully explorable Star Wars universe
As Cory Barlog tweeted (opens in new tab) back in December 2020, there’s a burning desire amongst Star Wars fans for a single-player game that has you “flying your ship from system to system picking up bounties”. While Barlog’s Tweet details a game that centers around the Mandalorian, most Star Wars gamers would be happy with an explorable Star Wars universe, period. That’s why the Fallout: New Vegas Star Wars mod is so wildly popular, as it gives players the chance to fully explore and immerse themselves in a Star Wars RPG. And that’s ultimately all we want to enjoy with the power of ray-tracing and better SSDs in PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC – a fully explorable Star Wars universe that we can get lost in.
2. A bevy of weapons
One of the reasons Star Wars 1313 captured the collective consciousness of the gaming community was that it was a Star Wars game that seemed to be entirely without lightsabers. There’s a collection of amazing weapons in the Star Wars world, from chic blasters to The Mandalorian’s whistling birds, to the Z6 riot control baton. While wielding a lightsaber with increasing deftness in Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order is incredibly fun, the notion of a bevy of Star Wars weapons at your character’s disposal is enticing. Imagine skill trees that let you choose to hone your craft at specific types of weapons (beskar staff, please), rather than being relegated to just using one weapon the entire time.
3. A new, fully customizable character
As much as I’d love an Ahsoka Tano video game – especially since she actually goes to 1313 on Star Wars: The Clone Wars – a game from The Division creators (and any good RPG) will likely give you free rein to create your own character. What this upcoming Ubisoft Star Wars game should do is let you pick from a variety of alien species, as well, as alien protagonists are hard to come by in this universe. Who wouldn’t want to play through an entire Star Wars game as their very own Twi’Lek?
4. Vehicles on vehicles
Give us podracing give us speeder bikes give us AT-ATs and so much more. Let us use the smorgasbord of spaceships to travel between planets, and navigate the surface of those planets with the occasional land-based vehicle. We may have Star Wars: Squadrons to scratch our dogfighting itch, but there are few Star Wars games that let you get behind the wheel of a speeder or an AT-AT for more than a few moments. I’d love to zip from waypoint to waypoint aboard a custom speeder, especially if this upcoming Ubisoft Star Wars title has maps the size of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. If the maps are more Division 2 size, then that just means we’ll get a better chance to explore much more detailed cities, rather than the somewhat barren cities of Valhalla. Either way, we should have a bevy of vehicles at our disposal.
5. Destiny-level live service features
The Division titles are games as a service, offering players a chance to return to the game to take part in daily tasks to earn new content or loot, or to build on their existing characters, or take part in PvP matchmaking. While it hasn’t been outright stated that the Ubisoft Star wars game will be a live-service title, considering Ubisoft Massive is at the helm, it’s certainly likely. If that’s the case, this should be a Destiny-level live service game, with major updates occurring once a year and frequent, smaller updates keeping the title fresh. Give us a chance to earn cool new gear or visit a new planet every once in a while. If you expand upon the existing world semi-frequently and you’ll have a game that can last years – just look at Destiny 2. However, if the live-service features don’t manage to offer that specific mix of static campaign content and new post-campaign features, you’ll find people fleeing the universe faster than you can say “Maclunky”.
We’ve got Project 007: James Bond, Avatar, Hogwarts Legacy, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars games in our sights, does this mean we’re entering a Golden Age for Licensed Games?