Be honest, last week when you watched Clone Wars and Ahsoka descended to level 1313 in Coruscant, you jumped out of your seat right? Well this news might elicit the same reaction for all too different reasons.
Website Kotaku has run a story that, from anonymous sources, claims that LucasArts has put the Star War 1313 project on hold. Star Wars 1313 which made a tremendous ripple in the Force at last year’s E3, has now lost momentum following Disney’s acquisition of LucasArts. It’s said the game may now be delayed well past its original 2013 release date. LucasArts wouldn’t speak about the game to Kotaku; other to say that is hasn’t been canceled (which isn’t the same as we’re working on it)
If you are already mad, you might not want to read any further. Kotaku states:
“Underworld 1313 was, we’re told, originally going to be an open-world role-playing game similar to the beloved BioWare title Knights of the Old Republic but with episodic character updates delivered regularly over DLC. Story arcs would go to some dark places, touching on terrorism, the dealings of crime families and prostitution.
We’re told that the game was scaled back in 2010 after budgetary concerns put the TV show on hold. The game was re-written with a new story that was disconnected from the TV-show material. And this is where what our sources say gets even more interesting. LucasArts supposedly was set to reinvent itself in 2011 under then-studio-president Paul Meegan, attempting to make Star Wars-style games in popular genres. There would be a Star Wars riff on FarmVille and a Call of Duty-style first-person shooter codenamed Trigger. 1313 was switched from codename Underworld to codename Hive and given platforming elements, similar to Sony’s hit series Uncharted. A LucasArts rep declined to comment about any of this.
Development on the game began to proceed quite well going into either 2011 or 2012 when George Lucas himself apparently saw the game. One source mentions that Lucas “loved” the game and encouraged the developers to weave stories and characters from the TV scripts. The game’s storylines would answer such questions as “Who is Boba Fett?”, “Why was Han working for Jabba?” and “Who were the Bothan spies?” Lucas’ requests were not to be ignored, that source says, leaving the developers of the re-named 1313 with a game that had backing from the man in charge but without a concrete story or characters. A new story was still in the works when the game was shown at E3 2012.
The game dazzled at E3 and then, as any observers have noticed, went dark.”
Did any of that make you angry enough to go over to the Dark Side? It all sounded so epic!!! It seems Disney purchase of LucasFilm (which includes LucasArts) has re focused the company’s gaming division. The spotlight is on the new trilogy, not on material that is unrelated to the J.J. Abrams directed Star Wars: Episode VII. Maybe they are working on it, but wouldn’t they have shown something on the PS4? Wouldn’t we have heard something by now?
When I heard 1313 in Clone Wars I thought it was a cool little easter egg for fans. Now I feel like it was a Lightsaber stab in the back.
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
Nerd Comments