Next Star Wars mobile game is our first look at a post-‘Return of the Jedi’ galaxy

GamesBeat: When you talk about a Star Wars RPG, a lot of people will think of Knights of the Old Republic. Do you take any inspiration from those games, or are you doing your own thing?

Erickson: I’d say both. Before this, I was creative director on the Old Republic MMO. Before that I did Dragon Age over at BioWare. I definitely have a lot of experience there. At the same, we’re doing an action-RPG. We’ve also pulled in a lot of ex-Blizzard talent, a lot of Diablo vets. What I like to say is, as far as the depth of storytelling and how much you’re going to learn about Star Wars and how it’s going to feel to be in a place like this, it’s going to be more like KOTOR when you’re outside of running a mission. When you’re inside running a mission, it’s more like Diablo, an action-RPG. You can play simultaneously with your friends. We’re not doing a lot of chit-chat during the dungeon time. It’s a lot of smashing things, collecting loot, building cool characters and so on. But on the other side, Alex Freed is writing our script. We have several hundred pages of Star Wars script from someone who was a lead writer at BioWare, also a Star Wars novelist and a Star Wars comic book writer for Dark Horse. We’re taking the fact that we’re going to be making additions to the canon extremely seriously from the storytelling side.

Above: It’s not Star Wars without bounty hunters.

Image Credit: Kabam

GamesBeat: Since the Disney merger, we’ve seen a couple of other Star Wars mobile games, like Commander. They’ve maybe been a bit more what we’ve come to expect from this market. What you’re doing here sounds more like a traditional PC game.

Erickson: That’s how we define ourselves. We’re a traditional RPG studio. Except for the constraints of the platform and how people use it — that’s really all we look at when we think of what it means to be mobile. We have hugely powerful devices that kick the crap out of the computers we had when we started playing RPGs. The idea that a mobile RPG has to be a simulator of an RPG, or a short attention-span thing that plays itself, or something that runs out of story content in the first 20 minutes — it’s just something that never entered our minds. We’re here to make the next great Star Wars RPG. We fully expect that when people talk about this in the future, they will talk about playing KOTOR and they’ll talk about playing Uprising. As the generations turn, we see this a lot with younger players. They don’t differentiate between the two. There’s not that gap anymore — I play this, but I don’t play that. Mobile is now the go-to, because so many people have it sitting around. As people upgrade their phones, they give their old phone to their kids to use with their wi-fi. It’s become this super-high-power equivalent of a Game Boy.

GamesBeat: Is this RPG experience going to have a definitive end to the story when it comes out, and then it’s supported by new content? Or is it going to be more open-ended?

Erickson: A little of both. The way we approach it, chapters one and two are what we’re scheduling for launch, which is a huge chunk of content. A few hundred pages of script. We try to parse it into kind of movie chunks, if you will, although obviously they take a lot longer because it’s an RPG. Chapter one would be a great stand-alone, meaty RPG by itself. We give you a good satisfying ending. There’s a good pace to it. But obviously the story isn’t over. You head into chapter two and we continue the Star Wars piece. Chapter one and two are what we’re looking at for worldwide launch. Chapter three is already in script approval and going through Lucasfilm. This is something that we are — we have built this thing and the structure of it planning for years in the future.

GamesBeat: Talking about the constraints of the time period you’re working with, I know a lot of people, when they think about playing a Star Wars game, they imagine playing as a Jedi. You’re in a time period where, aside from Luke, Star Wars doesn’t have a lot of Force-sensitive people. Are you going to be working in Force powers, or are you looking at different kinds of character types?

Erickson: We’re definitely focused on the other side of Star Wars. Our people tend to be street guys, bounty hunters, people who came from that underground perspective. That said, we are still Star Wars. What we can talk about, what will come in the future — we are set to evolve as the canon of the new movies evolves and introduces things back into the universe.

Above: Nice shoulder pads.

Image Credit: Kabam

GamesBeat: Are these plotlines that you’re introducing in the game, will they tie directly to The Force Awakens?

Erickson: Not actually even allowed to touch that one. No comment.

GamesBeat: I feel like if I ask any more Force Awakens questions, a little red dot’s going to appear on my forehead.

Erickson: Or on my forehead.

GamesBeat: It must be exciting, though. A Star Wars mobile game would get some attention, but you guys are going to likely be the first game set in this post-Return era. You’ll have a lot of extra eyes on you. I wonder if that adds any extra pressure.

Erickson: It does. It also adds a lot of thrill to it. Having worked on the expanded universe for a long time, getting to have the main content to play with is incredibly fun. Knowing that people are going to be as passionate, especially because of the age range of the people making this — we tend to be original trilogy fans. We love all the Star Wars, but this is what we grew up with. Because the new movie has played that note so loudly and we’re coming in right after Jedi, we get to be the first thing that’s actually done in canon after Jedi in decades. People have been waiting to see this stuff. And we’re a return to the Star Wars flavor that we all grew up with and really loved. It’s exciting. There’s a lot of pressure and it’s very carefully managed. Every once in a while you do get a note from way, way up high. The two super-important people say no and you say, OK, that’s cool. But it’s a great space to work in. It really is a dream come true.

GamesBeat: As somebody who worked in the Expanded Universe quite a bit, now that all of it is no longer canon, if you could bring back one idea or character from there, what would you choose?

Erickson: The interesting thing about that is that we don’t even really have to. What they did is they wiped the canon officially, but they kept everything under a classification they call “Legends.” They’re really strongly encouraging us to keep with that stuff as long as it doesn’t argue. We’re taking the best of the Expanded Universe stuff, taking it through the careful process they now use to put things into Star Wars, and tweaking and tucking. I don’t actually have to ask that question, because that’s a lot of what we’re doing on the project. We’re bringing in Expanded Universe worlds. There’s still so many things that smart people and creative people have done through the times. I don’t feel the need to go out and make up something wholesale when there’s even a kernel of a great idea that some fan somewhere is still attached to. We’re going to take that instead and bring it into the new canon.

GamesBeat: So we might see an HK-47 cameo someday still?

Erickson: It is absolutely possible.