A brand-new trailer for LEGO Star Wars The Skywalker Saga drops, and it looks like the game’s shaping up to be a true celebration of Star Wars.
A game first announced in 2019, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has received delay after delay. With an initial rumored release date of October 2020, the game has now finally been given a release date of April 5, 2022, alongside a new trailer that showcases a whole host of gameplay mechanics and features.
It seems like all those delays were worth it, because the latest trailer points to LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga being not only the most ambitious LEGO game ever made, but perhaps the most ambitious Star Wars game entirely. With over 20 fully explorable planets, over 300 unlockable characters, and all nine films being fully playable, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga looks as though it’s going to be a true celebration of all things Star Wars.
A Definitive Star Wars Collection
The LEGO games have had quite a few attempts at the Star Wars license, with the first game collecting the prequel trilogy, the second entry using the original trilogy, and the third game focusing on the Clone Wars spinoff TV show. Currently, if a player wanted to play through the saga in cutesy LEGO form, then they’d have to pick up LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, which combined the first two games into one, giving a few extra bonus levels and refining some gameplay elements to make one smooth Star Wars video game experience.
But times have changed, and The Complete Saga is no longer complete. With Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, it was only a matter a time before new movies started to release. Flash forward 10 years and audiences have now seen an entire sequel trilogy, along with a few spin-off titles and a handful of shows to boot. Like it or not, Disney has added a lot to the Star Wars canon, and any contemporary Star Wars video game can’t just forget that.
Thankfully, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is embracing every aspect of Star Wars, including everything Disney has made. All nine mainline Star Wars movies are going to be playable in the Skywalker Saga, with each movie having quite a few missions that re-tell the story of the episode using LEGO’s unique brand of charm and humor.
Also, confirmed in the new trailer, players who purchase the Deluxe Edition of The Skywalker Saga will receive six character packs, each one relating to a Star Wars spin-off such as the Bad Batch, The Mandalorian, and Rogue One. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga looks as though it’s going to be a definitive collection of all Star Wars content, and with the possibility of future DLC updates, it might stay that way for quite some time.
Exploring a Beautiful, Bustling Galaxy
One of the most exciting aspects of the new trailer, which has been teased before but is now finally confirmed, is the game’s open-world focus – or, more accurately, open-worlds. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is shown to feature at least 24 planets, unlocking one-by-one as players progress through the main narrative of each Star Wars episode. It’s only shown for a minute or two in the trailer, but the scale of each of these planets looks pretty substantial, with vehicles being needed to traverse the large open areas.
Each of the iconic planets in The Skywalker Saga can be found on the in-game map, with fan-favorites like Hoth, Tatooine, and Naboo all being shown in the trailer. Within just a press of button, players will be able to hyperspace to the planet of their choosing, explore the space surrounding the planet, get into some quick space dogfights, and land on the planet – a feature that fans have wanted in a Star Wars game since Battlefront 2.
Once on the planet, players will be able to roam freely on the surface. Side quests were shown briefly in the trailer, and, as is always the case in a LEGO game, exploration seems to be a core focus of each planets’ overworld. While the trailer didn’t spend too long showcasing these open-world environments, they look as though they’re going to really deliver an authentic Star Wars experience, from the vibrant and accurate visuals of each planet and environment to the amount of NPCs dotted around the open-world.
Fan-Service With Actual Substance
If there’s one franchise that’s known for its often absurd levels of fan-service, it’s Star Wars. The sequel trilogy is often cited by even the most die-hard fans as having too much blatant or unearned fan-service moments, whether it’s unnecessary cameos from beloved Star Wars characters or iconic objects that linger on the screen for a little too long.
Fortunately, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga looks like it may just offer the perfect level of fan-service, giving a hefty amount of substance with each reference or inside joke it makes. For instance, it’s said that there are over 300 unlockable characters in the game. This number is pretty staggering, but Traveller’s Tales has plenty of experience in this field, and with each new LEGO game, it learns a little more about how to make each one feel unique.
The new trailer showcases the combat in The Skywalker Saga, depicting it as having almost Devil May Cry-like combo-centric gameplay, where characters can juggle their opponents in the air and perform a number of special, character-themed moves. For instance, Poe Dameron is shown to use his blaster rifle to shoot his Stormtrooper opponent into the sky, and then use a grapple gun to bring himself back down to the ground. This decent level of character variation, where each character has different combos depending on their specific skills and weapons, is shown a few times in the trailer. Hopefully, it will help to make each character feel unique and more fleshed out than in previous LEGO games.
Another area in which The Skywalker Saga is providing fan-service but with depth is its seemingly large selection of iconic vehicles. The trailer showed even less on vehicle gameplay than it did the open-world sections, but if the character variations are anything to go by, The Skywalker Saga‘s land and space vehicles are sure to be heaped in nostalgia while also providing unique gameplay elements. An example of this shows the speeder bike controlling fairly differently from Luke’s landspeeder. Hopefully, The Skywalker Saga can deliver upon that perfect balance between fan-service and substance that the trailer seems to showcase.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga launches April 5 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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