Force Fading

I grew up on the tail end of a nebulous timeline in regards to laying claim to “my Star Wars.” Well-known directors of Hollywood and my dad could bring up their memories of seeing the original (pre “Episode IV-A New Hope” inclusion) for the first time in theaters back in the day; past that, the early 80’s continued with successive sequels and spin-off cartoons. The only media from that era I got to see in its unaltered form were the cartoons. And though my age range fits comfortably into the era of the prequel trilogy and Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars series, it’s tough for me consider that as where I most familiarize myself with the series. Not to distance myself from that era out of animosity—since I still find the prequels to be mostly enjoyable even at the risk of an internet flogging for saying so, but because before then I was exploring Star Wars in new, fascinating ways: game mechanics. Betwixt the gap of watching the hand-me-down VHS versions for the first time and seeing Episode I in theaters, there was a sizeable gap in my early childhood that was filled with Star Wars games in a multitude of genres.

Where I set my foot firmest in regards to “my Star Wars” is one built around general themes and system mastery rather than scripts and storyboards. Instead of following a set narrative, I was involved in a multitude of stories with my involvement: a TIE fighter pilot taking orders from The Emperor, a scoundrel facing off against the likes of IG-88, platforming on Tatoonie, etc. Whereas some may be able to discuss how moved they were in seeing The Battle of Yavin IV and The Trench Run on the big screen when they were young, those closer to my age may recount their sensations of being a part of that battle in Star Wars Trilogy Arcade (1) when they were young.

I’m not trying to create some kind of clash against which of those was the better experience; rather, this examination is just to provide context in an effort to look beyond my waned avidity not only over DICE’s upcoming Star Wars Battlefront reboot, and the problematic news that’s been revealed to the public thus far (2), but to SW games in the future. Disney’s acquisition of this license may have shoved all past titles into the non-canon “Legends” category, but that can’t remove the canonized history of so many developers’ testing the waters in systemizing specific staples of Star Wars in years past; and as a result, the popular stuff like lightsaber duels, space combat, and more that’s been reused over the years has painted a more-comprehensive picture of how it would feel to inhabit this universe.

After roughly thirty-five years’ worth of games, almost always equipped with the scrolling text and John Williams score at the beginning, I don’t think it’s hasty of me to consider that most of the unique traits to Star Wars have been formulated into games already. There doesn’t seem to be much fertile ground left and it seems to have been that way since the coolbeans-proclaimed ‘Golden Age’ of Star Wars video games (~5th and 6th console generations). I don’t want to completely disregard the possibility of exciting new narratives to be told in Star Wars, especially when considering what the new canon can clean up and retell; only that the wholly distinctive characteristics of this series cause me to wonder if there’s much left for gameplay treatment.

When it comes to how the license has been treated recently, it’s obvious developers haven’t been too concerned with being much beyond another Star Wars-licensed game either. That kind of exploration I used to see has been slowly decaying as of late, with a greater emphasis on just being typical genre titles within the Star Wars setting. Compare that to the inception of SW games that broke new ground like Jedi Arena or The Trench Run in Star Wars Arcade.

“Well…okay,” I surmise some may think, “obviously the games that get there first are going to get credit for breaking new ground in Star Wars.” But even in a lot of later genre releases you could notice a fervency of developers trying to investigate this beloved series and integrate it naturally into the mechanics. There’s even two clear FPS examples of this released in different decades. The Dark Forces series may have taken obvious influence from Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM at the time; however, it also tackled the light/dark dichotomy of force powers and brought the relatively new sensations of blaster fire and how the lightsaber/blaster dynamic would work in this perspective. Similarly, Republic Commando can easily be considered a Halo clone—hopefully not with a disparaging tone—but that template was used to explore droid battle through the eyes of a Clone Wars-era commando leader, assembling their tactical formations (all presented through their helmets no less) in beating Separatist droids of different sizes, and fleshing out unique differences between each crew member in this squad despite being the same manufactured by-product of one bounty hunter.

There’s quite a few other examples of older titles that tapped into Star Wars in a similar fashion too.

The Battlefront series of a bygone era may have just been Battlefield games, possibly sharing a greater resemblance with them in the past than what the reboot’s already shown, but that was the intention anyways. Pandemic tapped into the pulpy WWII affectations the movies themselves had during a timeline when European Theater WWII shooters were all the rage, even featuring those faded memory cut scenes with a veteran voiceover in the background. The space fighting in BFII, and the other Starfighter/Rouge Squadron games by extension, had combat, UI, etc. that felt more like dog fighting in Blazing Angels than space simulation; this makes sense given that’s how the movies structured their space combat too.

Not too long ago in a game industry that seems far, far away these older games extrapolated ideas and transplanted them in a way we could perceive. Whether it was pod racing back on N64 or class and resource structure in Empire at War, so many of these games explored this rich universe THROUGH gameplay. Looking at now-defunct projects to recently released titles and you could easily spot the disparity today.

One of the first titles that comes to mind would be the recent Star Wars: The Old Republic. It delivered in the art style, sound department, and in-depth lore to an incredible extent, but the rousing hook of having a fully-voice acted storyline and the extra subtleties put on this WOW template could’ve been done in just about any other MMO. Staying with Bioware titles, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) essentially acted as a bridge between their older catalog and Mass Effect; in the process, this underlined that the core RPG mechanics didn’t have something uniquely Star Wars about them. These examples aren’t meant to come off as some kind of dig against them; you’re talking about two titles I’ve awarded a GOTY nomination and my current GOAT in video games for Pete’s sake. I absolutely adore these two titles. KOTOR may have been my first Bioware RPG, but glancing back at their history to the Neverwinter series reveals a lot of the game's roots.

It’s easy to see this same kind of investigation lacking in the most-recent Lucasarts-published SW titles before Disney came on the scene. The LEGO Star Wars games were certainly fun collect-a-thon romps that kept me playing for hours on end, but as Marvel, Batman, Jurassic World, and more LEGO-branded games have shown there’s no inherent quality that fundamentally changes the structure without the Star Wars series. The Clone Wars-Republic Heroes was just a bog-standard action-adventure title with a side-scrolling template for Jedi and third-person shooting for troopers. Let’s also not forget the publisher’s last finished project just to drive the point home (3). By all accounts, the cancelled Star Wars 1313 just seemed to be a darker kind of Uncharted/Tomb Raider set in the underbelly of Coruscant.

While I don’t want to disregard just how great of a game 1313 may have been or how entertaining the LEGO Star Wars games are, it’s just that many of the recent games seem content to use this setting as dressing for traditional mechanics rather than serving as a foundation for investigating this universe in some nuanced way.

I’ve been avoiding the outlook of new narratives because of what’s been stated in the beginning about systems being the focus, but there’s one excellent example in my mind where mechanics and story gelled together to explore Star Wars in an interesting, new way: KOTOR II. Granted, the template from KOTOR was still borrowed from in a lot of ways but the new companion trust mechanic tied to your decisions and dialogue choices allowed you to poke and prod at Kreia’s amazing critique of the black-and-white moral compass of the series and strangely-sensible disparagement of The Force itself. She’s one of the most fascinating characters of the universe that I’ve ever come across in this series, Expanded Universe or otherwise. I’d really like to dive into the genius I see from writer Chris Avellone’s negative deconstruction but suffice to say there’s more of a tangible game-y quality that felt uniquely Star Wars here because of that subversion of the light and dark side that's so woven into these RPG decisions. It simply wouldn't have carried the same impact in any other series.

While I’m sure many aren’t against the idea of making new Star Wars games—me included—and there’s certainly a lot of fertile ground for exciting new Star Wars stories in games, but it seems obvious that developers aren’t as interested in crafting distinctive game characteristics out of the series. Before, there used to be a unique category for Star Wars games set to explore the technology, warfare, vehicles, principles, and influences of this universe through gameplay. But now, the industry’s come to a point where it’s just taken the popular stuff, retrofitted that into some genre template, and stayed the course. Then again, that kind of complaint isn’t uniquely Star Wars either.

This rambling “back in my day” address is nowise suggesting a full-stop on Star Wars games now that this universe has been skimmed over and appropriated into many game mechanics. There may even be some room to explore the series in ways I haven’t even considered yet. Plus, games are also a great storytelling medium and this wonderful universe has a lot of avenues left to explore in that regard. There’s just…something deeper than the probable mishandling of this 10-year license deal by a disreputable third-party publisher that eats at me. While the first result of this new EA deal has brought a reboot and a plethora of pejorative-laden youtube rants against it for several justifiable reasons (4), I can’t help but aim my skepticism towards the overall future of Star Wars games through a specific kind of lens of how I grew up with the series. As I filter through my cheap steam collection of recently-purchased SW titles, and consider the ways many of these games brought a distant concept of the series on the theater screen to the tactile realm of games, I can’t help but wonder if that sort of stimulation will ever be presented as it had in the past.

The aphorism may be clichéd but it just seems fitting for this situation: “they just don’t make them like they used to.”

Links:

(1.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

(2.) http://ps4daily.com/wp-cont...

(3.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

(4.) https://www.youtube.com/wat...