San Diego Comic-Con proved to be a massive hit for Star Wars fans, showing off some of the franchise’s upcoming video game offerings. Chief among the games featured at SDCC was Star Wars: Outlaws, the franchise’s first open-world game that allowed players to explore the seedy underbelly of George Lucas’s beloved universe. With other games like Eclipse and Hunters on the way, the Star Wars video game universe is about to expand in new and exciting ways.
After an unfortunate string of canceled Star Wars video games, the franchise finally seems to have found its footing in the gaming community, producing hit after hit in recent years. Nevertheless, as popular as Lucasfilm’s offerings have been, many of their recent and upcoming games share a common setting. While the Star Wars timeline is expansive, ranging across multiple different eras of the galaxy’s history, most of the franchise’s video games prefer to be set in or around the period of the Galactic Civil War.
Most Star Wars Games Are Set During The Galactic Civil War
Seemingly unable to break free from the Original Trilogy, Star Wars has continually returned to the same time period over and over again. This issue has been manifested in the franchise’s live-action installments, with shows like Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Mandalorian, and The Book of Boba Fett all taking place within a few years of the original movies. The video games are no different, as most of the latest big budget Star Wars games take place shortly before of after A New Hope.
Most notably, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor both take place during the early stages of the Galactic Civil War, with the latter occurring in 9 BBY, the same year as the events of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Similarly, all four Battlefront games have favored the Galactic Civil War era, with the latest installment featuring a story mode that explores the immediate aftermath of the conflict. Even some of the franchise’s upcoming installments are set during this time period. Star Wars: Outlaws is confirmed to take place between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Meanwhile, Star Wars: Hunters is also confirmed for the same general timeframe, continuing the franchise’s strange reliance on the Original Trilogy for its video game offerings.
Why Star Wars Is Obsessed With The Original Trilogy Era
Star Wars keeps returning to the original trilogy era because it’s worked well for them so far. As exciting as open-world games like Star Wars: Outlaws are, it is just as exciting for fans to revisit the classic era of Star Wars and all the nostalgia that comes alongside it. In an age when the fanbase is so divided, it simply makes sense for Lucasfilm to focus on the one era on which all audiences can agree. By focusing on the original trilogy tone and aesthetics, Star Wars avoids some of the less pleasant discourse associated with the prequel and sequel trilogy eras. Furthermore, many of the franchise’s most popular characters are active during the years leading up to and during the Galactic Civil War. This allows for cameos from iconic characters like Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine.
Another reason that Star Wars seems so obsessed with the Galactic Civil War is that it is less fleshed-out than certain other eras of the franchise. The recent resurgence of content set in that era helps fill in the gaps left between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, answering questions that audiences have had for decades. Games like Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor help explain exactly what certain Jedi were up to in the fallout of Order 66, whereas Outlaws seeks to paint a better picture of the criminal underworld’s dealings during the war. Other games, like 2017’s Battlefront II explore the Imperial Remnant’s actions after the war’s end, helping to set up The Force Awakens. Taken together, these games help further flesh out the setting of the Original Trilogy.
Will Star Wars Games Explore Other Eras?
While it is always a pleasure to return to the Orginal Trilogy era, it is also a relief to see that future Star Wars games will also explore other eras as well. While set during the Galactic Civil War, Star Wars: Outlaws features a droid character from the prequel era, inviting the potential for flashbacks that take place during the Clone Wars. Interestingly enough, Star Wars video games have mostly avoided the prequel era, rarely endeavoring into the events of the Clone Wars, save for select flashback sequences that depict Order 66. While Outlaws‘ droid character is a start, it would be in the franchise’s best interest to explore the prequel era to some extent in video game format, giving players the chance to fight alongside their favorite characters in one of the galaxy’s greatest wars.
In addition to the franchise’s many Original Trilogy-era projects, there are also many Star Wars games in development that will explore the High Republic era, before the events of The Phantom Menace. Among these in-development projects is a remake of the classic Knights of the Old Republic video game, which has faced some delays but would still be a huge boon for fans of the classic game. Moreover, Star Wars is poised to explore an entirely new High Republic story in Eclipse. Very little is known about the new game, save that it will be set hundreds of years before the prequel trilogy and will feature a younger Master Yoda, as seen in the announcement trailer. Given the franchise’s long-standing fascination with the Galactic Civil War, it will certainly be a welcome change of pace for upcoming games to explore the much-uncharted era of the High Republic and the Jedi Order in its prime.