The House of Mouse Has Closed LucasArts

Since Disney’s buyout of all things Lucas last Fall — including such assests as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, the likeness of young Richard Dreyfuss circa American Graffiti (I’m guessing) — the merger has been nothing but high-fives and ass slaps…

Except for poor LucasArts.  LucasFilm’s game publishing division has overseen not just the Star Wars license since 1982, but has made several hefty contributions to the gaming ‘verse in the form of The Secret of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion games, greatly shaping the point n’ click adventure genre.  Today, Disney announced it has let go LucasArts’ staff and effectively closed the once mighty studio.  Disney intends on keeping the studio’s name only, using the brand on future, licensed out games (likely Star Wars titles) to external developers.

The official byline regarding LucasArts’ death follows: “We’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games.”

Star Wars 1313 (above) and Star Wars: First Assault, the former a high-profile next-gen action game that Disney requested to be put on hold and the ladder being an unrevealed (yet still leaked) precursor to Battlefront III, are, according to Disney, to be possibly licensed out for completion, but sources close to LucasArts reported to Kotaku those two are as good as cancelled.

LucasArts, despite some moderate success this generation (i.e. the first Force Unleashed), have been circling the drain for quite a while, even before the merger.  Mismanagement, constantly shifting company leads, financial disappointments (cue The Old Republic), and the use of external developers as a crutch instead of their in-house team all spelled “TROUBLE” in bright, yellow Star Wars-font.  Pair that with Disney’s outspoken disinterest in funding big, expensive games over cheaper, safer bets, the outlook for LucasArts was Grim Fandango.

Still, I can’t help but mourn the loss of the time weathered giant.  Shadows of the Empire, Rogue Squadron, that terrible Jedi Power Battles game that my friends hated playing with me — their Star Wars titles alone brought hundreds of hours of happy distraction throughout my life, from childhood to adulthood.

You’re going to hear “May the Force be with you” until you vomit.  I won’t commit such fuckery.  Instead, I just want to say thank you, LucasArts, and good luck.

Obsidian is Itching to Make Another Star Wars RPG

Though Bioware takes credit for ushering the mountain-sized mythology of Star Wars into the choice-driven, action-RPG domain with the original Knights of the Old Republic, you’ll be hard pressed to find a gamer in this galaxy willing to downplay the Force-radiating brilliance of Obsidian’s 2004 sequel, The Sith Lords (even despite that pesky lack of an ending).

Shy of a decade later, Obsidian is dead set on returning to Star Wars with an idea for an RPG that CEO Feargus Urquhart is confident enough to place within the company’s “top three pitches” for a game.  But unlike Bioware’s The Old Republic and their own Sith Lords, Obsidian wants the game’s backdrop to fit snugly somewhere within, but separate from, the film saga’s chronology.

“We pitched a between-Episode III and Episode IV game [to LucasArts],” Urquhart said to online PC scribes Rock Paper Shotgun.  “We think that time frame is super interesting. It’s the fall of the Republic, the extermination of the Jedi, it’s Obi-Wan going off and making sure Luke is okay. You have the Sith, but you have the extermination of all Force users except for very, very few. So it was an interesting time to set a game, and you know, Chris Avellone [Knights of the Old Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas] came up with a really cool story.”

There’s just the one highly publicized snag: the new boss in town, family-friendly overlord Disney, made firm its position to move the franchise away from consoles and focus on the handheld and mobile markets (take a moment to cringe).  “It changes things a lot, but you know, we’re gonna push on it,” said Urquhart, noting that after pitching the project to LucasArts, Obsidian received very immediate, very encouraging response.

All that’s stopping Obsidian from delivering us another dose of Star Wars RPG excellence, according to Urquhart, is one conversation with Disney.  Here’s to hoping it’s a goddamn good one.

THE RULE OF TWO: Disney Acquires Star Wars

New Film Trilogy Announced and the Franchise’s Gaming Future Discussed

Fellow nerds, I come to you with big fucking news today.  It has been announced that family-friendly empire, The Walt Disney Company, has acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. to the tune of $4.05 billion.  The acquisition means Disney effectively owns all of the company’s assets — be it film production (including renown FX shop Industrial Light & Magic), merchandising rights, Harrison Ford’s gallstones, you name it.  As such, the entire property of Star Wars now belongs to Disney.

And Disney wasted no time in revealing their plans for the franchise, making it a point to announce that Star Wars Episode VII is set to release by 2015.  Yes, a full-fledged sequel to the first two trilogies is in the works.  What’s more, Disney intends on producing and distributing Episodes VIII and IX every other year afterwards while leaving the door open for further installments.  Your eyes and capacity for comprehension do not deceive you, friends.  Sweet Anakin’s ghost, we’re getting another trilogy.

Insight on the acquisition from George “The Beard” Lucas himself:

“For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next.  It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers.  I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime.”

Like Disney’s buyout of Marvel, Lucasfilms’ day-to-day — headed by Kathleen Kennedy — will remain largely the same.  Similarly, all projects in development before the acquisition also continue unaffected.  On the gaming front that means LucasArts’ next-gen action title, Star Wars 1313, is still well under way (along with the rumored Star Wars: Frontline Assault).

Going forward, though, Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted that future game development would unfortunately focus more on the mobile/social gaming market rather than on consoles.  However, Iger does hint that he wishes to be opportunistic with console iterations, contracting third-parties to handle development duties when the need arises.  That may not sound too promising for console owners, but with three new feature films looking to expand the already storied mythos even more…Give it some time.  The games are sure to come.

Star Wars 1313 (Next-Gen)

Jedi’s get to have all the fun when it comes to Star Wars video games.  There have been spectacular examples of Force-less games that have brought the thunder — Shadows of the Empire (mostly Force-free), Rogue Squadron (which the world needs another of) — yet there hasn’t been anything similar in recent memory that has gotten the blood boiling.

Now comes 1313, a serious tale about a serious bounty hunter searching the crime-thick bowels of the planet Coruscant.  Without a lightsaber handy, your character falls back on blasters, tools, and cover — and you’ll do well in 1313 to always shoot first.  Closer to Uncharted than Force Unleashed, Lucasart’s internally developed IP is striving for the highest fidelity by partnering with film industry wizards Industrial Light & Magic as well as Lucasfilm Animation and Skywalker Sound.

Star Wars 1313 is young yet but you have to admit it at least looks mighty impressive whether you love the property or not.

LucasArts Bullied Free Radical’s Star Wars: Battlefront III Into Cancellation

“It was the most depressing and pointless thing that I have ever been involved in. The dream job which I once loved had become a nightmarish torture.”

David Doak, Free Radical founder, recalling his experience working on the troubled Battlefront III.

In an astounding interview with Eurogamer, Doak and fellow Free Radical co-founder Steve Ellis say their business relationship with long-time Star Wars video game purveyors, LucasArts, was nothing short of enjoyable when production on the sequel began in 2006.  After a succession of commercial failures (starting with the third TimeSplitters and ending flatly on Haze), being apart of LucasArts’ project was a “marriage made in heaven,” according to Doak.  Because at his studio, “You don’t have to go very far in development to find someone with Star Wars shit on their desk.”

By 2008, however, when the developer decided to voice concerns about the title’s progress, Doak and Ellis picked the unfortunate time of broadcasting doubts to a new set of faces at LucasArts that, quite frankly, didn’t believe in Free Radical’s very costly (but ambitious) project.  With familiar allies gone, Doak felt they “went from talking to people who were passionate about making games to talking to psychopaths who insisted on having an unpleasant lawyer in the room.”

While a contract protected Free Radical’s Battlefront from axing for a time, LucasArts still quickly cut funding, making obligatory milestones impossible to meet, and making it doubly impossible to continue functioning on a timely and regular basis.  After numerous conversations degraded, and the tempting idea to have another studio, Rebellion, hastily patch together a simpler, less ambitious Battlefront III using Free Radical’s assets was considered, the game finally just buckled and died.

And to an extent, so did Free Radical.  The studio was forced to let a significant portion of their staff go, leaving behind a skeleton crew meant to keep the developer breathing until the company was eventually bought by Crytek who transformed the once unique studio into the unimaginatively named Crytek UK.

Again, read the full, depressing story here.

ge-ek:

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