The return of Lucasfilm Games promises to bring new single-player Star Wars video games to fans in the coming years, and a reboot of Star Wars: Bounty Hunter that focused on Jango Fett's mentor, Jaster Mereel, should be one of them. The Dark Horse comic, Jango Fett: Open Seasons, detailed the origin of Jango Fett and revealed how the True Mandalorians, led by Mereel, raised him after his family was murdered by Death Watch, a traditionalist Mandalorian faction. Although Jango's origin - and the existence of Mereel, for that matter - were wiped from the Star Wars continuity with Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, a small Easter egg in the second season of The Mandalorian brought Mereel back into canon, leaving the door open for Jango's origin to be retold - potentially in video game form.
The 2002 video game, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, served as a prequel to Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, and explored how Jango Fett was recruited by Count Dooku and became the genetic template of the Clone Army. Although not considered one of the best Star Wars games like KOTOR or Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Bounty Hunter is fondly ed by many Star Wars fans and could be revisited, especially now that the Mandalorians have a central role in the franchise. Star Wars: The Clone Wars explored the Mandalorian Civil War between Death Watch and the True Mandalorians, while Star Wars Rebels focused on how Mandalore survived the Imperial occupation. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni's The Mandalorian, meanwhile, has only further cemented the planet's place at the forefront of Star Wars, and the spotlight is set to continue with the release of The Book of Boba Fett spin-off.
All of this makes the potential for a game set around a Mandalorian character more and more likely, but rather than focusing on an established character from the films and live-action shows, like Din Djarin or the Fetts, it would make more sense to take inspiration from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order's Cal Kestis, and explore a more unfamiliar character like Mereel instead. Doing so in a third-person action game made in the Bounty Hunter mold would not only provide a great way of retelling a beloved story from Star Wars Legends, but contribute something new and valuable to the mythology of the Mandalorians in the current canon. It would also depict a period of the Star Wars canon yet to be seen outside of the comics or novels, which would make for a refreshing change of pace given the most recent games have for the most part focused on the original trilogy.
A Star Wars Mandalorian Game Is More Likely Than Ever
Although Star Wars Bounty Hunter wasn't as great as the other classic Star Wars games developed and published by LucasArts in the early 2000s, it is interesting to revisit in 2021, with it being the sole Mandalorian-led AAA Star Wars game, and having been released prior to all the various animated and live-action series that have fleshed out the Mandalorians since. Further still, the vast majority of Star Wars games have put players in the boots of a Jedi or some kind of soldier, and the only other attempt to develop a Mandalorian-focused Star Wars game - Star Wars 1313 - ended in cancellation, making Bounty Hunter a unique addition to the franchise. With the Mandalorians now taking a central role in the saga though, it seems increasingly likely that Bounty Hunter's status as the sole Mando-centric Star Wars video game will end sooner, rather than later.
There's much that the new Star Wars canon is yet to reveal about the Mandalorians, despite them having received a lot of attention since the release of The Clone Wars, and a video game could be just the thing to explore more of their mythology. Both TCW and Rebels have provided snippets of Mandalorian history prior to Star Wars' Skywalker Saga, but nothing along the lines seen in Legends stories like Dark Horse's Knights of the Old Republic comic, which was set during the Mandalorian Wars. A potential Mando game needn't have to travel that far into the past though - there's still much that Star Wars hasn't shown regarding the Mandalorians even as recently in the timeline as The Phantom Menace, which is where Bounty Hunter, Open Seasons, and Jaster Mereel could come in.
Bounty Hunter Should Be Rebooted, And Focus On Jango's Origin
If a Mandalorian video game was developed, it's doubtful that it would focus on Din Djarin or Boba Fett. Although the two most popular Mandalorian characters, their exploits are currently being marshaled on Disney+ by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, and stories of significance relating to either character are likely to be told on the same platform. Fortunately, the most successful story-driven Star Wars games have tended to spotlight protagonists of their own making, whether that be fugitive Jedi Cal Kestis in Jedi: Fallen Order, or Knights of the Old Republic's Revan, meaning there's precedent for a potential Mandalorian game to do something similar.
Such a game (if it were to be made) should capitalize on the Easter egg seen in the second season of The Mandalorian, and focus on Jaster Mereel taking a young Jango Fett under his wing during the early stages of the Mandalorian Civil War, which Lucasfilm has so far only provided brief snippets of. Mereel himself may not be a brand-new creation like Fallen Order's Kestis or Darth Revan, but the blank slate provided by Disney's canon-wipe means he may as well be. He could prove to be a fitting protagonist for a future Star Wars video game because of this, especially one that detailed the origins of Jango Fett, and fleshed out more of Mandalore's history.
The original Jango Fett: Open Seasons comic was written by former LucasArts developer Haden Blackman with art from Ramón F. Bachs and Raul Fernandez. It was published the same year as Attack of the Clones and Bounty Hunter released and, like the game, was designed to explore more of Jango Fett's character, who only had a marginal role in the film. Blackman also wrote the story for Bounty Hunter, which influenced future Sith stories, and provided the foundations of the Mandalorian mythos that would later be explored in The Clone Wars and subsequent Star Wars offerings.
Whereas Bounty Hunter focused on Jango at his prime, Open Seasons depicted his beginnings. The comic showed how Fett's family was murdered by Death Watch (a group later reimagined in The Clone Wars), and how the True Mandalorians, led by Mereel, raised him afterward. The True Mandalorians train Jango, until he eventually s them in field operations. Mereel is sadly killed after another Mandalorian, Montross (the main antagonist of the Bounty Hunter video game), refuses to come to his aid, leading to Fett becoming the group's new leader.
A Bounty Hunter Reboot Could Focus On Jaster Mereel
Although it would be great to step into Jango Fett's boots in a new Bounty Hunter game, Jaster Mereel is a lesser-known character and could provide the perfect perspective from which to explore an era of Mandalorian history as of yet unseen in the new Star Wars canon. Lucasfilm has provided glimpses here or there of what the galaxy looked like before The Phantom Menace, but nothing of what Mandalore looked like during that era. It's possible that this aspect of Mandalorian history could be explored in a future comic book or novel, but it's also something that video games specifically would excel in developing. A Mandalorian Star Wars game set prior to Episode I would enable players to immerse themselves fully in a relatively unexplored part of the galaxy's history, and potentially develop a new aesthetic set in between the High Republic era and the prequel trilogy.
Telling the origin of Jango through the eyes of his mentor Jaster would also suit a game perfectly because it's important, but not immediately so. It's possible that the canceled Star Wars 1313 game - LucasArts' final project that would've explored the rise of Boba Fett in between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope - met its fate because of Lucasfilm's plans to develop a Boba Fett spin-off movie. That too was canceled, but now fans have The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, with the bulk of the character's development now taking place on the small screen. Jango - although important - isn't as iconic as Boba, and given that much of the pre-Phantom Menace timeline is still unexplored in the new canon, it could mean that a potential video game set around his early Mandalorian journey wouldn't encroach on Lucasfilm's plans in film and television.
Done right, a Bounty Hunter reboot that focused on Jaster and Jango could be Star Wars' version of Red Dead Redemption, switching between the two protagonists like Arthur Morgan and John Martson in RDR2. Players could experience the burgeoning days of the Mandalorian Civil War and see how it divided the planet, while also witnessing the early beginnings of one of the galaxy's most legendary bounty hunters. This way, the game would capitalize on the renewed focus on the Mandalorians in wider Star Wars fiction, without piggybacking too heavily off of The Mandalorian. The bulk of Star Wars titles over the last decade have all had an original trilogy-era focus too, so if Star Wars Bounty Hunter was to return, reimagining Open Seasons may be the best way to do it.
