Now witness the power of a fully armed and operational Mouse House. Disney has officially and swiftly laid off all 150 employees at Lucasarts, and announced today that the studio is being shuttered.
Sayeth the official statement: “After evaluating our position in the games market, 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. As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”
The most notable new title in question would be M-rated bounty hunter title Star Wars: 1313, which was shown off at E3 last year. Disney has already attempted to have the game farmed out to an outside developer, but since no takers were found, the game is effectively dead, along with a game called First Assault which was rumored to essentially be Battlefront III in all but name.
That’s the bad news. Here’s the silver lining, if Disney decides to do this right: Licensing basically means that if Double Fine wants to make a new Grim Fandango, or Telltale wants to resurrect Maniac Mansion, or if Naughty Dog wants to do the crossover of a lifetime and have Nathan Drake meet Indiana Jones, they can, long as they’re willing to pony up the cash to Disney. In theory, this means any AAA studio with the right mindset can have at on any number of Lucasarts’ properties, and I can’t imagine anyone doing any worse than Kinect Star Wars. IF Disney decides to do this right, that is. Worst case scenario is we get another god damned Force Unleashed.
Still, the studio was responsible for a lot, and I mean a fucking LOT of memories for a lot of gamers, and no matter what comes of this, it’s going to be weird as hell not having that little stick figure branded on a game.
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X-Wing X-Wing X-Wing X-Wing X-Wing
TIE FIGHTER!
Flying your favourite starship while Williams’ score is serenading you during the mission …. how could anyone not be thankful to have played those games?
Also: Rabbity Thing.
Can we get a KotOR 3?
Or at least a proper KotOR 2, for that matter
Definitely a sad day. LucasArts had the highs and lows of an independent studio, tons of creativity, but not always a ton of business sense. But, it served as an incubator for a lot of quality game talent.
Plus, if you worked there in the mid to late 90’s, the late night network gaming was epic!
I also looked at the bright side of having LucasArts titles go to new studios to make better games.
Good riddance. All of those ‘memories’ (and, yeah, I was there for them all and they WERE epic) came from the first half of the company’s existence – they’ve churned out utter garbage for close on a decade now. Am sorry to see Disney pull the plug JUST as LA looks like they were finally figuring out that, duh, people have been pleading for BF3 on a next-gen console for 7 years now.
I would like to add though “WTF, Disney?”. I mean, they bought this goddamn thing and have been systematically dismantling every last in-flight project in any media since the acquisition was approved. They’ve directly stepped in and cancelled EVERY creative direction SW was going – why is anyone imagining that the new films are going to be anything other than designed by-committee shit lacking even the ideas at play in the PT?
This. Thank you. Disney is really too big to have one single opinion on it (the same company that gave the world Cinderella also gave us Cinderella II and III. Fuck that). But…and pardon the phrase, I have a bad feeling about their direction with Star Wars. Exhibit A: The Clone Wars.
I dunno. While I’m sad to see Clone Wars go, and definitely was looking forward to seeing what 1313 had to offer, I think there might be some wisdom in slowing the brand down to a trickle for a couple years while they build up to the new films. From my understanding, ratings on the Clone Wars had dropped off considerably (though they were still probably good enough that they could have kept it going another season or two if they wanted to), and being an avid toy collector, it’s been pretty painfully obvious for the last year or two that the toy line is dwindling as well.
I mean, I have no illusions that Star Wars would completely go away, but I think the brand is in a bit of a lull right now, and maybe “taking a break” is the better call from a business perspective, so that when the new films hit it feels more like a special event.
Can’t say I’m particularly broken hearted over this. As a company, Lucasarts jumped the shark when they canceled “Sam & Max: Freelance Police” back in 2004. This feels like a mercy kill if anything.
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