Star Wars 1313 Ever Getting Picked Up Again
Why Disney Won't Release Star Wars 1313
Gustavo Mendonca
In that location once was a dream of a Star Wars game. Visually striking, both in its detailed environments and its fluid motion-captured animations. A perfect blend of adventure cinematics and scripted gameplay moments. Character-driven. Set up in a corner of the universe familiar to well-nigh fans, yet rarely always explored. It was Star Wars 1313. It was not to exist.
Star Wars 1313 has get something of a cult legend amid fans, a game that looked absolutely incredible, and one we never got to play. Very fiddling of the game was always actually shown, notwithstanding the few glimpses that LucasArts released were enough to become both the gaming and Star Wars communities hyped. Clearly, there was a lot of interest in the title — and interest means money.
And even so, Disney — no stranger to money or the acquisition of it — cancelled the game when they purchased the Lucas Empire, and have barely spoken of it since. At this indicate, it's get clear that Disney will never release Star Wars 1313, no thing how much audiences want it. While that seems insane at starting time glance, a deeper dive reveals that 1313 was the victim of a broader strategy in which it simply didn't fit. Whatever else you may call it, the world'southward dominant entertainment company isn't dumb. They know exactly whatStar Wars1313 represents...and why that means they can never release information technology.
Disney isn't in the gaming business anymore
Disney shocked the entertainment world when they purchased Lucasfilm (and its subsidiaries) in 2012 — and then shocked information technology over again when they shut down Lucas' video game sectionalisation, LucasArts. Given the $four billion purchase price, information technology seemed crazy to axe such a major office of the Lucas business. Too, wouldn't the acquisition of such a storied and veteran game developer help out with the balance of Disney's gaming concern?
But "the rest of Disney's gaming business organisation" was already shrinking. Just weeks earlier the LucasArts shutdown, Epic Mickey programmer Junction Point was likewise given the pink slip. A few years subsequently, the company's hybrid toy-game product Disney Infinity was shuttered. In May 2016, Disney completed the bloodbath by shuttering its own video game partition, Disney Interactive. The Business firm of Mickey, it seemed, had no faith in video games.
But how could that be? The games industry is thriving! And Disney owns some of the most franchise-friendly intellectual belongings ever! Why would they not want in on that? Equally always, money talks, and in this case, it was talking gibberish. Between 2008 and 2013, Disney Interactive lost a staggering $1.41 billion. Despite the success of gaming as a whole, that success wasn't translating over to the Burbank entertainment behemoth, for whatsoever reason. Rather than spend more money trying to plug a sinking send, Mickey Mouse instead grabbed a lifeboat and got off altogether. Disney at present licenses all their gaming products.
EA is the sole licensee for Star Wars games
In terms of licensing their Star Wars games, Disney made it simple: Electronic Arts makes them. EA locked Disney into a multi-year deal to exclusively produce games based on the franchise. Exactly how long? Well ... "multi-year." That'due south what the press release said. Nobody actually knows how long that is. This contract was signed in 2013, so who knows? EA could lose the license tomorrow. Or hold onto it for another 5 years.
Just equally long equally EA is the official maker of Star Wars games, they'll want to brand their own games that they ain (inside the premises of the license, at least). That ways developing new titles with their ain internal teams, on their proprietary Frostbite Engine. EA doesn't have much incentive for salvaging a title one-half-developed by a unlike team on some other engine.
It's true that EA resurrected the Battlefront franchise, which was formerly a LucasArts holding. Just they made it their own by giving it to celebrated shooter developer DICE (whose Battlefield series inspired the old Battlefront games in the first identify). The franchise reboot was created from scratch.
By contrast, 1313had already been in evolution for some while. Rather than try to own somebody else's endeavor, EA would be better off making their ain game in the same tone and way. Something audacious and exciting, with a cinematic flair. And it only so happens, they did!
But that didn't work either.
Even EA can't get this kind of game fabricated
With its third-person perspective, cinematic sensibilities, and scripted spectacles, Star Wars 1313 clearly derived influence from one gaming franchise in particular: Naughty Dog's Uncharted. This series redefined the camerawork, animation, and acting standards across the industry. And hey: Uncharted's main inspiration was another Lucas belongings, Indiana Jones. The Uncharted fashion and the Star Wars brand seemed made for each other.
Then when EA took over the gaming license for the galaxy far, far away, they saw the potential for what 1313 represented. And they liked what they saw! So much and then that they began their own Uncharted-style project, headed by no less than Uncharted'southward creator, Amy Hennig. The projection was ready at EA's revered Visceral Games studio, which had crafted horror masterpieces with their Dead Space series. A dearest IP, a slap-up studio, a veteran manager, and an adventure-movie house vibe: this project had everything that 1313 once did, and more.
And nevertheless, it was a disaster. In tardily 2017, EA not just cancelled the Star Wars project, but shut down Visceral Games entirely. While the development has technically been relocated to EA's studio in Vancouver, this is a brand-new project starting from scratch. In other words, fifty-fifty Amy Hennig couldn't make an Uncharted-mode Star Wars game, at to the lowest degree not at EA. That leaves 1313 itself with basically no chance at all of getting picked up.
By at present, any work had been washed is outdated
A fair bit of work had already been done on Star Wars 1313 when the Disney banhammer came swinging. Besides a treasure trove of peachy concept art, the E3 demo showed that at least a decent corporeality of technical work had been completed also (though as we all know, E3 demos aren't always indicative of the finished product). This isn't a pocket-size item: a lot of money had been poured into 1313 already.
And nevertheless, all that effort is years-one-time by at present. Unreal Engine three powered 1313, which was a great engine in its day. Only its day has long since passed. Unreal Engine 4 has been in the wild for several years now, and its raw technical prowess puts its venerable predecessor to shame. Meanwhile, the games industry is constantly adapting and evolving in terms of UI, design, features, and overall expectations. Even if 1313 was absolutely cutting-edge in 2013, by now it would be dulled and rusted.
So again, a Star Wars game-maker would exist better served past starting a new project from scratch. At the moment, this is EA Vancouver; Respawn Amusement also has a Star Wars game in the works, but nosotros know this isn't 313. The window for salvaging an abandoned product has simply passed.
Disney wanted to exit of prequel territory, pronto
In instance you've been living in a cave on Dagobah for the concluding twenty years, here's a quick lesson: people generally don't like the Star Wars prequels. They were sleeky where the originals were raw, digital where the originals were practical, and, honestly, poorly written and badly acted where the originals were iconic in every way.
Disney was well aware of this when they purchased Lucasfilm, and ever since, they've fabricated it their mission to make people forget the prequels happened. First, they canceled the excellent animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. This was a fantastic show, and no 1 doubted its quality; in fact, Disney immediately put the creators to work on a new series, Star Wars: Rebels. When does Rebels have identify? Just before the original films, bringing audiences out of the prequel caput-infinite. Since then, very little Star Wars textile gone anywhere near the prequels. Even the new films aggressively draw influence from the original trilogy.
We eventually learned Star Wars 1313 would exist Boba Fett's origin story, i.east., his journeying from young clone into legendary bounty hunter. But that timeframe would've ready the game squarely in prequel territory, where Disney is loath to tread. True, Star Wars: Battlefront II released in 2017 with some prequel settings and characters, but this wasn't a narrative game, and was 'covered' by original and new trilogy cloth also. 1313 was stuck in the wrong time, with no manner out.
Just because it looked great doesn't mean it was
The hype around Star Wars 1313 was understandable: who wouldn't want a gorgeous Star Wars game with an adventure vibe? Only what fans lament at present is the game we all wished nosotros had gotten, non the bodily game in production. Nobody knows what 1313 actually felt similar to play. Was information technology really every bit proficient every bit something like Uncharted, or was information technology a cheap knock-off meant to cash in on Uncharted's success?
While we'll never know, a look at LucasArts' terminal years isn't actually encouraging. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed came out in 2008 to middling reviews, and its sequel in 2010 did even worse. In 2009, LucasArts released a game based on the popular Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series, called Democracy Heroes, but this was panned across the lath. And let usa never forget the horror that was Kinect Star Wars.
Actually, on 2nd idea, permit's definitely forget it.
LucasArts was once ane of the premier game developers in the globe, but the celebrity days of Guybrush Threepwood were already long gone past the time 1313 got cancelled. Given the company's latter-twenty-four hour period track record, information technology's entirely plausible that 1313 would have concluded upward beingness mediocre, still another example of a adept thought rushed to market with the Star Wars proper name slapped on top of it. Disney may well take suspected as much, and moved to bury the project rather than ever salvage it.
Disney gave up the trademark
If you actually desire to know Disney'south thinking, follow the coin. The Mouse Firm uses a strong roster of IPs to produce diamonds from a diversity of media, merchandise, and licensing, non to mention a theme park ride or 2. Their franchises are their golden gooses. So if Disney isn't protecting one, then they have no intention of e'er releasing it into the wild.
In Dec of 2013, Disney immune the Star Wars 1313 trademark to lapse. There'due south absolutely no way that Mickey and his lawyers would've allowed this to happen unless they'd abandoned the projection entirely. While there are ways for Disney to reactivate this trademark in the future, the fact that it'south remained defunct for all these years shows the level of the company's apathy. If there was any hope that Disney might want to return to the project in the future, so they would've kept the trademark alive.
Plans can change, and maybe one twenty-four hours Disney volition reactivate the mark. Only right now, Disney doesn't fifty-fifty foresee that possibility, let alone have whatsoever distinct plans to do so.
Pieces of Star Wars 1313 accept gone into other projects
Star Wars 1313 isn't the only astonishing franchise idea that never fabricated it to daylight. One time upon a fourth dimension, George Lucas spent a practiced chunk of time and money fleshing out a live-activeness television receiver series called Star Wars: Underground. A number of height-tier writers from across dissimilar media all converged on this project, and a good many scripts were produced. For reasons unknown, merely likely to do with prohibitive costs, the serial was never made.
But that doesn't mean the work went nowhere. In an interview with SlashFilm, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy stated that the visitor has "spent a lot of fourth dimension reading through the material," which implies that the best $.25 of the show tin serve equally inspiration towards future, new projects. In the same breath, she mentions 1313. The game is another cancelled piece of work from which they hope to draw inspiration.
As of this writing, Disney is hard at work on a live-action serial, but by all indications, this will exist a brand new idea and not Underground. Fifty-fifty however, Cloak-and-dagger will alive on as the kernel for other, new ideas, possibly even within the new show. Star Wars1313 ought to exist looked at the same fashion: a seed from which new projects volition grow, even though, like Clandestine, it will just never exist itself.
Star Wars 1313 might no longer fit into the new canon
Star Wars spent thirty years creating books, comics, video games, and any other media it could get its hands on. That meant decades' worth of inconsistencies, retcons, and varying levels of "official" and "unofficial" mythology. And then when Disney purchased the franchise, they made a assuming determination: to jettison the entire Expanded Universe and start from scratch. Only the films and the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated serial survived the purge.
This was not done callously. Lucasfilm's new Story Grouping wanted to move forrard with a unified canon in which all Star Wars media conformed to the aforementioned mythology. To no 1'southward surprise, this has meant a whole host of new books, new comics, and new video games, often recasting old favorites into the new system.
Star Wars 1313 was already well into evolution when the old Expanded Universe was shown the airlock. Though it took place within the chronology of the films (it was intended as a look at Boba Fett's early bounty hunting years), it probably made references to characters and events that are no longer an official office of Star Wars. A rescue operation hither wouldn't be impossible, just a lot of work would take to exist ditched and replaced to bring the story into line with the new, approved canon.
Star Wars 1313 represents an earlier era, and not but in terms of story
By this point, Star Wars 1313'southward very status equally a cult legend makes information technology unattractive to Disney. Even today, the unreleased game is a relatively well-known product, which makes for a lot of expectations. Disney can handle expectations simply fine (see: The Force Awakens). Simply 1313 is at present saddled with the baggage of nostalgia and memory, of a time before a mouse ruled over Darth Vader, of an era when a Lucas ran Lucasfilm.
Disney has led Star Wars to enormous commercial success through a diverseness of media, but already, questions are brewing. Some critics worry about the Marvel-ization of the series, and a vocal contingent of fans aren't happy with the direction the films are taking. At that place'due south fifty-fifty a petition to bring George Lucas back to the fold. And that's not even getting into the many director firings.
If, by some miracle, 1313 were resurrected, completed, released, and and then actually liked, this could actually accident upward in Disney's face up. It would 'evidence' — to those who wanted it to — that Star Wars was amend earlier Disney, that Lucas was the truthful force behind the Forcefulness. Why would Disney accept the PR risk? They could merely as easily brand other games, or blood-red-choice 1313'south ideas and put them into other projects. Which is exactly what they're doing.
Which is why you'll never see Star Wars 1313.
Source: https://www.svg.com/117164/disney-wont-release-star-wars-1313/
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