Warner BrosWhen LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was first announced during Microsoft’s E3 press conference, I foolishly assumed that it was simply a compilation of the original game, it’s sequel, and LEGO The Force Awakens, with The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker bolted on.
Oh, how wrong I was. I just checked out some actual gameplay of the upcoming project during a press only, hands-off session at the Warner Bros E3 booth, and it’s clear that developer Traveler’s Tales has pushed the boat out with this one.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga ain’t no remaster, son. It’s all nine movies, completely rebuilt from the ground up in a package that looks to be the most ambitious LEGO game we’ve ever seen.
I’m talking a completely new graphics engine, I’m talking an overhauled combat system, and I’m talking actual, massive space battles in a similar vein to the excellent Rogue Squadron games.
The short demo started with the Millennium Falcon flying through an open area of space over Tattooine. A Star Destroyer – built entirely from LEGO – warped into existence, and we’re told this is just one of the random events that can occur while exploring the game’s apparently massive world.
We were then taken down to Tatooine itself, where it became even more apparent that we were looking at something potentially very special.
Warner BrosThe dust and sand of the dessert planet sticks to various LEGO figures and objects, and get this – the entire planet is completely open to explore, from Old Ben’s house, to Luke’s family’s moisture farm, to the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is is Mos Eisley.
In addition to various story missions that follow along with the plots of the iconic films, I saw that there’ll also be various side missions and open world activities to complete, in order to get currency to upgrade your ships, and presumably gain access to other, currently unannounced goodies.
Combat has been completely redone, too. There’s a cool looking new combo system for lightsaber battles, overhauled shooting mechanics, and the promise that Jedi can use the force to interact with anything in the world that’s made of LEGO.
Warner BrosWhile we only really got a good look at Tatooine in the demo, a brief trailer to close out the presentation implied that we’ll get to explore open world versions of pretty much every planet in the franchise, including Cloud City and Naboo.
It’s early days, but I think this could well be the Star Wars game you’re looking for.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.