One of my big pet peeves is announcing games long before they are every going to be released, and it seems like Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic is going to fall into that camp.
But first, let’s jump back to the initial announcement. Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic was revealed at The Game Awards with a pretty simple trailer. But the real key piece of information is that Casey Hudson, who led the development on the original Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and served as executive produce on the Mass Effect trilogy, is helming this new project which is described as a spiritual successor to Knights of the Old Republic.
Now for the bad news: Lucasfilm has said that the game’s development studio (Arcanaut Studios) was founded earlier this year, meaning Fate of the Old Republic is in very, very early development.
The official Star Wars website confirms this, saying the game is “Still in the early stages of development and creation”.
“Our goal is developing the kind of games I love making: emotionally powerful, cinematic adventures driven by player agency, narrative depth, and immersive world-building,” he says. “Conversations between our team and Lucasfilm Games led to an incredible opportunity to return to Star Wars, and once again we can hardly believe we’re working on such a special project.”
In essence, then, the brief trailer we were shown represents almost nothing of the game itself.
Even Jason Schreier of Bloomberg reckons we won’t be seeing the game for a long time, throwing out an “optimistic” guess of 2030 at the earliest. Unfortunately for us, five years is a quick turnaround for a triple-A title these days.
This isn’t unusual, though. Trailers like this more often than not exist not just to get people excited, but also to act as a means of attracting talent to work at the studio. Prospective employees will see what the team is working on and will get in touch, eager to join up and get to help create a Star Wars game. The trailer and the game’s announcement are a billboard saying “Help wanted.”
That’s one hell of a billboard.
