In November, just after purchasing LucasFilm, Disney CEO Bob Iger held a company-wide meeting.
During the meeting, according to a source in attendance, a few people asked what was going on. What was going to happen to them? What was the future of LucasArts, the LucasFilm subsidiary and 30-year-old video game studio responsible for a number of beloved games?
âItâs business as usual,â Iger answered, according to our source.
Six months later, Disney shut down LucasArts. All games in production were cancelled. Business as usual.
https://lastchance.cc/disney-shuts-down-lucasarts-468473749%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
In late 2011, then-LucasArts president Paul Meegan told the website MCV that he had overhauled the studioâs teams and started production on a number of different games.
âWe should be making games that define our medium, that are competitive with the best of our industry, but weâre not. That has to change,â he said. âStar Wars lends itself to all kinds of games â connecting players and giving them deeper experiences. Stay tuned.â
When Meegan made those proclamations, LucasArts was working on a number of different games, multiple sources have confirmed to Kotaku. One of those games was Star Wars 1313. Another was Star Wars: First Assault. And then there were others, like Outpost, a social game that was to be the Star Wars version of FarmVille. There was an iOS game, and a project headed up by well-respected Splinter Cell designer Clint Hocking.
In the coming months, every single one of these games would be cancelled or overhauled. Star Wars 1313 shifted directions multiple times, while First Assault was scaled down significantly. Outpost and the iOS game were axed. Hocking left the company, and Meegan would go on to leave too.
https://lastchance.cc/the-strange-status-of-star-wars-1313-a-hot-game-with-5987674%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
âWe just got the worst case of blue balls,â said a source. âWe had no idea what was going on.â
A couple months later, Disney announced that they had purchased LucasFilm and all of its subsidiaries, including LucasArts. Thatâs when staff started to worry about their future there. âEverything Disney would tell us would be, âbusiness as usual, business as usual,'â a source said. âWe lost any transparency we had to the executive level.â
https://lastchance.cc/disney-buys-lucasfilm-star-wars-episode-7-coming-in-20-5957508%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
We reached out to Disney and LucasFilm this morning, but they declined to comment for this story.
In the coming months, up until just a couple of weeks ago, LucasArts staff were working on three projects: Star Wars: First Assault, Star Wars 1313, and a smaller project internally referred to as âVersion Two,â according to two sources familiar with the situation.
Kotaku has obtained video footage of this âVersion Twoâ project, which you can see below:
In the video, you can see all sorts of vehicle combat: the player, looking from a first-person perspective, zips around in X-Wings and AT-AT Walkers while shooting down TIE Fighters and other Star Wars-y vehicles. The art isnât final, but the combat looks very cool: one section, for example, shows multiple players riding on hoverbikes and shooting lasers at everything in their paths.
First Assault, as we reported a few weeks ago, didnât have any vehicles. Version Two did.
â[Thereâs] a very vocal audience thatâs clamoring for Battlefront III,â said a source. âWe were hoping to eventually give it to them.â
But over the past few months, morale has been low at LucasArts. Due to the freeze on all hiring and game announcements, staff at the company had no idea whether their games would ever actually come out.
In January, a month after the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, Disneyâs Iger came out and said they would be taking a close look at the violence in their video games.
This was a red flag for the developers at LucasArts. Here they are, working on a first-person shooter and a violent action-adventure game, and Disney says theyâre re-evaluating the amount of violence in their games? Not a great sign.
âIt was very clear that we were kind of the redheaded stepchild,â said a source. âWe kinda came along with the hot mom being the film properties.â
Next, Disney closed Junction Point, the studio behind Epic Mickey and its sequel. This was another ominous sign for LucasArts staff, a source said. âWe understand that Epic Mickey 2 didnât sell that well, but I mean, they tried to make a musical,â the source said. âWe didnât know what was happening there either.â
https://lastchance.cc/the-studio-behind-epic-mickey-has-shut-down-5979884%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
The first was in March, when Kotaku leaked details and videos from Star Wars: First Assault, which still hadnât been announced.
https://lastchance.cc/leaked-footage-of-star-wars-newest-take-on-battlefield-5990366%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
âWhen Disney didnât make lemonade out of lemons there, they didnât use that as a marketing opportunity. They didnât do anything,â a source said. Thatâs when they knew things were bad.
The day after Kotaku put up video footage from First Assault, LucasArts had a meeting, that source said.
âThey said âOkay, look, if anything else happens, weâre gonna take legal action, weâre gonna find you,ââ the source said. âNobody wants Lucas and Disney lawyers coming after them⊠nobody could even publicly acknowledge that the stuff [Kotaku was] showing was tied to us in any way.â
The second point when LucasArts employees knew that something had gone wrong was just before GDC, when, according to a source, they were given strict guidelines about what they could and could not say. First Assault developers were allowed to say they were working on a first-person shooter in the Star Wars universe, that source told me, but they couldnât name the game, even though it was already out there.
By this point, rumors had already been circulating that LucasArts might shut down. According to one source present at the pre-GDC meeting, executives acknowledged that rumor but wouldnât confirm or deny it.
âLuckily, many of us saw the writing on the wall and took GDC as an opportunity,â said the source.
Last week, Disney shut down LucasArts. Although LucasFilm says they could license out games like Star Wars 1313 or First Assault to be finished by other developers, Iâve talked to three sources who donât think thatâs likely.
âDisney says theyâre shopping [First Assault] around to other outlets to see if they want to finish it, but we donât think thatâs gonna happen,â a source said.
The big rumor floating around LucasArts circlesâsomething we have not been able to confirm, but that has been relayed to us by two different sourcesâis that EA was considering buying LucasArts, but that some combination of the SimCity debacle and CEO John Riccitielloâs departure put an end to those plans. We reached out to EA two days ago for comment on this, but they havenât gotten back to us.
UPDATE: EA has responded with a statement from labels president Frank Gibeau: âThe entire game industry is in transition as we build more efficient organizations to deliver games on popular new platforms like mobile and consoles. EA is not currently considering any major acquisitions.â
The shutdown of LucasArts has left the fate of Star Wars video games unclear. Will Disney license Star Wars to other publishers? Will they publish games made by external developers? Will we see more games like Star Wars Kinect? One thingâs for sure: it wonât be business as usual.
Clarification: An early version of this story implied that Bob Igerâs meeting was only with LucasArts. It was actually a company-wide meeting.
