Lucasfilm taps Ubisoft and Division 2 dev for next big open-world Star Wars game

New Star Wars Jedi Gameplay

It now looks like Ubisoft will be responsible for the next big open-world Star Wars game. After nearly a decade of EA fumbling with the coveted Star Wars license, everyone’s favorite sci-fi fantasy franchise will finally be changing hands, with the folks at Ubisoft taking the helm for its next AAA experience. Head below for more details and everything we now know about the next open-world Star Wars game. 

The  official relaunch of Lucasfilm Games is vastly broadening the scope of its intellectual properties, effectively opening the door for developers other than EA to put their own stamp on the beloved Star Wars franchise and other Lucasfilm worlds. Just yesterday, the folks at Bethesda announced that it was in development with modern era-Wolfenstein creator Machinegames on a brand-new Lucasfilm title starring none other than Indiana Jones himself.

While Disney executives recently told Wired that EA would remain a strategic partner moving forward, the move over to Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft clearly marks the end of an era. It’s hard to say if EA still has the rights to create Star Wars titles, but clearly Lucasfilm Games and Disney are looking at other avenues right now. 

Next open-world Star Wars game

Fast-forward to this morning, and new details courtesy of Wired are pointing at the next open-world Star Wars game landing in the Ubisoft camp. 

More specifically, Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment – the team responsible for The Division 2 – and its Snowdrop engine. While the project is still in its infancy, at most, it does appear as though the next open-world Star Wars experience will run on Massive Entertainment’s Snowdrop game engine and will be helmed by The Division 2’s lead director Julian Gerighty. 

There are no direct details on when we can expect to hear more about the upcoming Star Wars game, but it will likely be a while as Massive still appears to be hiring developers for it. 

9to5Toys‘ take

EA certainly made an honorable attempt at revitalizing hope in its treatment of Star Wars games with the Respawn-developed Jedi Fallen Order and, more recently, the starfigher dogfighting experience Squadrons, but it seems it was too little too late. As others have pointed out, there have only been a handful of proper Star Wars titles that came out of EA since 2013, outside of VR and mobile titles. Lucasfilm is clearly trying to reinvigorate interest in its beloved sci-fi fantasy, hopefully returning it to the golden KOTOR era, and it looks like it is already taking steps in the right direction. 

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