Lucasfilm Games and great Star Wars game, then it will have to avoid the problems of its recent titles.
Now that Lucasfilm Games has formed, it's opened up partnerships with studios beyond EA - which has handled Star Wars video games for the past eight years. Lucasfilm's past deal with EA led to plenty of contentions, as well as several cancelled Star Wars games, so it's not surprising that Lucasfilm Games has reached out to other companies like Ubisoft to work on new projects.
The sexual misconduct and abuse allegations, crunch development controversies, and criticisms about the lack of representation in its games. All of this can affect the new Star Wars project, and it will be something Ubisoft needs to come to with. This also includes another criticism commonly hurled as Ubisoft's open world games: that they're just too bloated with unnecessary content.
Why Ubisoft Games Are Bloated & What It Means For Star Wars
Ubisoft games frequently get criticized for their bloat, a term which means there's a lot of unnecessary (and even unwanted) content that makes a game run overly long. It's become a problem with a lot of studios, because companies want to keep people playing their games longer - especially when additional revenue comes from DLC, loot boxes, and microtransactions. Even though Assassin's Creed Valhalla attempted to trim some of the bloat from Assassin's Creed Odyssey, it faced a common criticism that it couldn't match its quality with its scope. And this has become a major issue with Ubisoft games.
There is a silver lining to all of this, however. Immortals Fenyx Rising, the latest open-world title from Ubisoft, manages to cut out a lot of the bloat found in Assassin Creed games, despite borrowing a lot from the series. The story of Immortals Fenyx Rising is much quicker and streamlined, so it appears Ubisoft is learning from its mistakes.
All of Ubisoft's problems will need to be dealt with in order to create a great Star Wars game. Representation will be incredibly important, especially since Star Wars is a series that promotes inclusivity. Unnecessary content and a bloated story could really diminish the greatness of an open-world Star Wars game, so hopefully Ubisoft will continue learning from its recent mistakes.
