Lucasarts is back?

 I thought you died alone, a long long time ago.

Disney. How do you face up to a corporate giant as powerful and unscrupulous as 'family friendly' as them? These are the sorts of people who will brutally crush anybody they could perceive as a mild hinderance, but they get away with it all either due to that faux happy face and welcoming arms, or just the sheer fact that they own every single property you used to love as a child so there's no defying them. By their word, storied studios will die without a second thought, and under their dark necrotic magiks studios can be resurrected against all the holy laws of man. Thus was true this week past when these literal studio murderers reached into their graveyards to drag out Lucasarts' battered and slain body, and after their Frankenstein-esque experiments, the thing was reborn as this unrecognisable monster known only as 'Lucasfilm Games'. Wait, Lucasfilm games? Seriously? What, you guys weren't allowed to call it Lucasarts again? Did you get pulled up 5 seconds before the announcement and couldn't fit in a brainstorming session? What the heck is a 'film game'? We making nothing but David Cage sequels here, or what's going on?

But yes, barring the absolutely atrocious name, Lucasarts are been reborn under the Disney banner a mere... 9 years after her murder. Oh and yes, before ya'll start; I know that under all technicalities the Lucasarts brand was never actually killed off. (Which makes it even weirder why they didn't just build up that studio. There's gotta be some contract stuff we don't know about.) But let's be honest here, gutting a promising studio by cancelling all their projects, firing 99% of the staff and turning a company that used to be on the cutting edge of development into a licenser; that's as close to studio murder as I can see. And now they've turned around and invoked her name to their own ends in an effort to ride this train of Star Wars revitalisation to glory. Nevermind the fact that, just going by pure statistics, at least 1/4 of the 20 new Star Wars projects they announced are probably going to fall flat on their face, meaning that unless the other 3/4 picks up serious slack, this Lucasfilm games experiment could go the way of the last company. (Afterall, we know how Disney's crack team of problem solvers deal with the most minor of inconveniences "Kill it with fire.")

Let me be frank for a second; I will not commend Disney for this move, because even at it's most basic they are missing the point of why killing of Lucasarts was so hurtful in the first place. Essentially Disney, at the time of the Star Wars acquisition, had but dipped their toes into the video game market and they bristled when they realised it wasn't a money printing machine; they actually had to put in work and make good games with mass appeal. As the dinosaurs that they are, rather than put in the work to get ahead of this burgeoning industry and install themselves in it as a powerplayer; Disney just said "it's too hard" threw in the towel and gave up. And after buying Lucasarts, a studio renowned for it's ability to make new and innovative products, they thought that the best move would be to fire everyone and kill it off rather than make use of the literally gift horse they'd just bought for their stable. (Are you starting to pick up on the way I don't particularly like Disney yet? I'm pretty subtle about it, you might not have noticed.)

Now they're realising that they were missing on literally stupid amounts of money and are slowly turning themselves around like the mile long ship that Disney encapsulates. But at the end of the day, is this all that Lucasarts ever was? Were they just a vehicle for George Lucas properties to be transferred into the gaming world, a creator of endless Star Wars games? Of course not, they were innovators! Look at their contributions to the, since stagnated, world of 'Point and click'! Ever heard of 'The Secret of Money Island?', literally one of the most famous Point and clicks of all time? That was them. How about 'Grim Fandango', the game which started the legacy of Tim Schafer even before he founded Double Fine? That was them. Day of the Tentacle, a lesser known classic that's just as brilliant? Lucasarts. And yes, a bevy of Star Wars games among them, but even then there they weren't slackers. Force Unleashed was responsible for real steps forward in ragdoll technology, and their contributions to the wider gaming world merely grow for there.

But all that means nothing now. Today their image and brand merely exists as a face for Disney who are still too cowardly to put their own face on front of their games unless it doesn't do well. Is that a promotion from simple licenser? I guess so, although we haven't really gotten confirmation whether this is actually the new form of Lucasarts or if they just stole the legacy of that studio in order to make a new company, so I can't even award Disney that slight praise just yet. At the very least this announcement could herald something positive; perhaps even an end to the tyrannical 10 year saga of Star Wars games that are published solely by EA. A decision which has cut down on the nearly yearly release of Star Wars games before the deal by about 300 percent. But as I don't believe that deal has technically run it's course just yet, I suppose we won't be celebrating liberation from that empire anytime soon. So in that case, why bother announce this at all?

Oh that's right, in order to precede the Bethesda announcement. That's right, Bethesda, makers of those RPG franchises you used to like, are teaming up with MachineGames (If you can even call it 'teaming up' considering that they already work exclusively with Bethesda) in order to make an Indiana Jones game. And I am... conflicted. On one hand, I still remember how much I loved 'Indiana Jones and the Emperors Tomb', but that was literally in the PS2 days, I'm not really sitting here with a candle in my window anymore. There was another game for the Wii, but by all accounts that was nothing to write home about. So now we've just got another game to coincide with the ramp up of marketing around this franchise that, rumour is, Disney wants to reboot. Call me a cynic, but I just ain't all that excited.

I mean sure, maybe once upon time merely hearing the Bethesda name would be enough to light a fire on my tail, but we live in enlightened times. They're handing this off to MachineGames, and even that has me a little confused. Those guys who, up until now, have focused on first person satirical action? Is Indiana Jones going to be a first person game? Would that work? Maybe, but something tells me that without getting to look at a digital recreation of Harrison Ford, (or, possibly, the next actor they bring in for this alleged reboot) selling the adventure might be hard. And it doesn't even make any sense conceptually. The fantasy isn't to replace Indiana Jones, we want to be him; so at least let us look at the guy. Yeah, there's no way this is going to be first person, I'm working myself up over nothing... probably.

Somehow it seems wrong to revive Lucasarts for an Indiana Jones video game, but I suppose it does send the message that this new 'Lucasfilm Games' isn't going to be a onetrick pony. (Although, given that they appear to be a pure licenser, maybe they will be anyway) Also, not the biggest fan of the 'absolutely nothing' teaser trailer approach to announcing games; I thought we outgrew that 5 years ago, but Disney and Bethesda are nothing if not behind the times. (They deserve each other) In my heart of hearts I want to look at this and nod my head that good fortunes are coming from this decision, and maybe they will be. Heck, perhaps Lucasfilm Games will slowly grow into independency once more and become a force for positive growth in videogame technology once again. Or maybe not, I dunno. At least I can say that all the ingredients seem to be there for a potentially cool game. (But experience says that'll just make it all the more heart-breaking when everything goes down the drain.)