Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga is coming!

 My Lego Star Wars franchise can't be this good!

So after a great many delays, a herculean about of build up, and more than a few rumours of this game being nothing more than modern day vapourware, we have our proof: Lego Star Wars the Skywalker Saga is a game. I say that to release the speculation of what feels like several lifetimes as well as in celebration for what can only be a good thing. Star Wars games have been in hibernation whilst the Sequel Trilogy did it's job in reminding everyone why Star Wars doesn't belong in theatres anymore, but now that the massacre is over the world was starting to heal, and a Lego game is the watershed moment we've been waiting for to signal that process in full swing. Of course, technically a new Lego Star Wars game has already been released recently, but I don't have an apple arcade account so I guess I'm just going to act as though 'Lego Star Wars: Castaways' doesn't exist, huh? Who needs it- the big one is on the horizon!

And may I just say that The Skywalker Saga is looking fine. As in, so much better than any Lego game has the right to be. Could this be one of the mythical times where delayed development time has genuinely gone into making the game as good as it can feasibly be, rather than just to disguise a messy late-game shift in direction that's all but guaranteed the final product will be a mess? Well I don't know but if this gameplay video is anything to go by, then I guess not. (Although we live in a post Cyberpunk-world, so I forever take any gaming marketing with entire wagon's worth of salt.) My expectations were more just impatient itches up until now, waiting to smuggle that which felt due to me, but after this little gameplay drop: heck, I might actually want to get this game because it'll be good. I want to get a kids game: let me sit on that one for a minute.

But can I really blame my self, or you me, when gameplay presentation is just doing the most like it does? I'm not just talking about the vast improvements in visual design in order to mimic this fidelity that I think is what the Lego movie simulated, although that does look great, I mean in content, in scope, and even in gameplay! The last time I looked enviously at the gameplay of a Lego game I was in Secondary School- what a time to be alive! It's looks as though TT games are committed to making this not only the best game they've ever put out for any property, but also a title catered to all the diverse fans they have and the one's they have yet to receive. I've never really thought of TT as a huge company, so god knows how they've managed to juggle all these development vectors at once, but god-bless them for the attempt. Because whatever drops on April 5 (We got a release date!) nothing will change the decently stunned wonderment I'm regarding the studio with today. I am impressed.

Structure is the big one; this is an open world, baby! One with missions baked into over 20 worlds we'll get to visit and explore at our leisure whilst playing as whoever we want out of 400 characters! If you struggle to quantify that number of characters like I did, Lego Star Wars 1 had 59, Lego Star Wars the Original Trilogy had 114, The Complete Saga had 160, and somehow Lego Star Wars The Force Awakens had 200. (That doesn't even make sense to me.) This one beats them all out, soundly. We'll have multiple areas of planets to explore, space travels and random space battles to pad out the time in-between, allegedly multiple-era locations, side quests, collectibles, basically too much game. We're getting too much game. And I want exactly too much. So I'd say we're on the right track.

The combat systems of these games have been entirely reworked, which is something that literally no one needed to do because these games are marketed towards actual babies. What kid is going to appreciate combo chains, or free-form force manipulation? Let me repeat that- this games has free- form force manipulation! That kind of stuff was cutting edge tech back in the days of Star Wars the Force Unleashed, now the Lego games are rocking them and my world doesn't make sense to me anymore. Space combat is now in-the-ship 3D environment flying, rather than the top-down or on-the-rails set-up these games used to employ. There's a cover system for shooting. Abilities for inside and outside combat are influenced by the RPG-lite class system- yes there are tiny RPG trees attached to a class system in this game. That probably isn't even going to prove worth the time it took to code for how little it'll influence enjoyment, but they did it! (Maybe the delays gave the team too much time.) 

Yet I haven't even mentioned the best feature. The be-all end-all, the cream of the crop. Do you want to know what these mad lads did? As shown very briefly in the trailer, under the extra features tab, these absolute saints threw in the ability to switch on an optional 'Mumble Mode'. And yes that is how it sounds- for those like me who grew up on the old school Lego games wherein all the cutscenes were performed with grunts, mumbles and charades, this mode brings that back. I can't even believe they would go that far for us old fans, that's beyond the freakin' pale. To actually hire voice actors and write vocal jokes throughout your entire game, and then recognise your audience and include an option to switch that off for nostalgia's sake... I try not to feel anything but mistrust towards developers and publishers nowadays, but that is undeniably sweet and attentive. I feel seen.

Of course, just because the team are rolling up on their release date and thus have likely long moved onto final polishing, that doesn't mean the content grind has paused. Already they've revealed the first few character packs hitting the game, because 400 ain't nearly enough, apparently. Bad Batch, Mandalorian, Boba Fett, Rogue One- all of them are getting their trademark characters thrown into this game, hinting at a potential for lone-form support. Are we expecting this to be a prelude for full-blown extra location packs down the line? Who can say; I just know that a Lego-version of the Mandalorian series' would be an instant buy. The Spider Asteroid episode with little red Lego nubs as the eyes? Get out of here- that would be so cool!

I'm excited, heck I'm giddy, and we're talking about Lego. If this world has any sense left in it I'd slap myself silly and wake up, but It's been so long since I've felt such pure and genuine awe at the amount of effort a game seems to have. Now whether or not the title is what it's selling itself to be... well that remains to be seen. But I'm really not looking to now have my heart broken on this one TT, so I'd very much appreciate it if you guys were totally on the level with this game. Assuming they are, and this game is really the swan song of the studio like they're setting it up to be, then forgive me if this entire blog goes dark throughout the beginning weeks of April as I reconnect with my presumed long-dead childhood innocence.