Disney Closes LucasArts, Cancels Star Wars 1313 and Other Projects

[Shawn Zipay]

It's official, Disney has closed down LucasArts. With it, all projects that the company was working on are now canceled. This includes the highly anticipated Star Wars 1313 that was teased last year at E3.

Disney's statement on the closure:

"After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we've had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles."

LucasArts had its hand in everything from a multitude of Star Wars titles to Indiana Jones games to Grim Fandango, the Monkey Island series and more. Unfortunately, more recent titles with the LucasArts branding failed to gather much momentum both from critics and gamers.

Star Wars 1313 aimed to turn things around for LucasArts, featuring some stunning visuals even at its very early stages of development. It is rumored that the studio tried to license out the game but they were unable to do so. Star Wars: First Assault was another unfortunate casualty in this mess. First Assault as you may recall was going to pave the way for Battlefront III if the former was a success with fans.

So not only are a few great games no longer going to be released, but a lot of good people lost their jobs today. Best of luck to everyone affected by this closure. A special thank you to LucasArts for the years of entertainment and a huge "fuck you" to Disney.

[CptainCrunch]

Yeah, Im mixed on this. The people with lost jobs and everything cancelled is bad. Licensing out good stuff to other companies can be good and show more better quality games.

I guess time will tell what happens.

[jimykx]

So.. even less chances to get Star Wars Battlefront 3 now?!?!?

[Stev0esque]

So.. even less chances to get Star Wars Battlefront 3 now?!?!?

Well it could be sold off to another company who is willing to make it, unless I'm mistaken.

Then there is the problem of "differing artistic views" on gameplay... Though I can't comment, not a big star wars fan nor have played SWBF.

[CptainCrunch]

What if the group that makes C&C ends up making Battlefront? That'd probably be good.

[Linux]

I knew the day would be coming that Disney would start throwing things away. I'm all for licensing stuff out, but I grew up playing LucasArts games, going to truly miss them even though I didn't really play the latest ones I remember the old ones just like they were the other day.

[K-16]

What if the group that makes C&C ends up making Battlefront? That'd probably be good.

Command & Conquer? So you mean Danger Close Games/EA Los Angeles?

[CptainCrunch]

Command & Conquer? So you mean Danger Close Games/EA Los Angeles?

Yeah, I think so. I lost track with all the C&C games long ago. I just remember Westwood

[K-16]

There's actually four developers who each have been involved with the franchise, and the one you listed is the original, but also liquidated so they're not really going to help with making Battlefront III a reality. The next closest developer would be the remnants of Westwood Studios, Petroglyph Games who did work on a Star Wars game, but that was an RTS (Empire At War). And so the other two EA choices were EA Phenomic and Victory Games, both of which are specialized in RTS games. So I'm merely guessing Danger Close Games because they're the only studio that shifted its focus from RTS to FPS, and the last thing we want is an RTS studio working on a Battlefront sequel.

[Thortok2000]

Monkey Island is the series I'll miss most. =/

[K-16]

Monkey Island is the series I'll miss most. =/

Why? If Telltale Games felt like doing another title (which currently they don't given how busy they are at this time), they could do it a lot more easily since they can ask Disney directly, instead of asking them through LucasArts. Basically it's one less company to go through to get development rights. Given how successful the last season was, I don't see why Disney would shun them from doing another Tales of Monkey Island season.

Though again, that won't be for a while as Telltale is busy as heck. However... Disney could get another developer to work on a Monkey Island or Sam and Max game. The halting of Star Wars 1313 confuses me though, since everybody wanted it. Why can't they let them finish the game before shutting them down? Or at least assign it to another Disney associated studio, and contract the fired staff to temp over there and finish the title?