Star Wars Games Have to Prove Respawn’s Jedi Series Wasn’t a Fluke

It’s been nearly 10 years since Disney released their first proper mainstream Star Wars game in the form of EA’s Star Wars Battlefront after acquiring Lucasfilm and shutting down LucasArts. As the first major Star Wars game developed under Disney, many fans expressed concern about games of the property going forward, given Battlefront‘s lack of content compared to Pandemic Studios’ Battlefront titles. This concern seemed to dissipate at first with the release of Respawn Entertainment’s critically acclaimed Star Wars Jedi series. However, developments in recent Star Wars game releases have increased concern for Star Wars gaming once more, putting more pressure on upcoming games to succeed both financially and critically.

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Somehow, Star Wars Battlefront 2 Returned…

The recent weeks have seen the resurgence of the lowest rated game in a classic series, as Star Wars Battlefront 2 has returned to popularity.

The Many Missteps of Disney-era Star Wars Games

This does not include mobile-exclusive Star Wars games such as Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes.

As not only the first major Star Wars game release under Disney but the game to revive the widely celebrated Battlefront series, EA’s Star Wars Battlefront had a lot to live up to. However, for most players, EA’s Battlefront was seen as a disappointment for numerous issues, such as lacking a campaign, being restricted to the Galactic Civil War, and featuring mechanics completely different from classic Battlefront titles. Despite the criticism, 2015’s Battlefront became a commercial success, selling over 14 million copies by 2017. Concern with Disney Star Wars games continued with 2016’s LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens as this was the first LEGO Star Wars game to focus primarily on one film, which stretched its missions a little thin.

2017 was arguably the peak of fan concern for Star Wars games due to the tumultuous launch of EA’s Star Wars Battlefront 2. EA did address many issues from 2015’s Battlefront, such as featuring factions from all three Star Wars film trilogies and including a single-player campaign, but it introduced a plethora of new issues. These ranged from initially featuring a deceptive loot box monetization progression system to many feeling Battlefront 2’s marketing lied to players about the campaign’s length and content. While fan reception of Battlefront 2 has grown more positive over the years due to several free updates adding long-desired content, Battlefront 2 is still best known for its wide-reaching controversies rather than its improvements.

Disney-Era Star Wars Game Issues Post-Battlefront 2

Following the release of 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, player sentiment towards new Star Wars games began to improve, though many games still featured critical issues. For example, 2020’s Star Wars: Squadrons offered immersive first-person starfighter combat, but its lack of multiplayer game modes didn’t keep gamers playing for long. Similarly, Zynga announced that its free-to-play Star Wars: Hunters game will have its servers shut down by October 2025, only a few months after Hunters’ one-year anniversary, due to poor sales and player retention. Finally, Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft’s first Disney Star Wars game, faced criticism due to restrictive stealth and open-world gameplay mechanics as well as expensive DLC content, which caused Outlaws to underperform in sales.

The Pressure of Upcoming Star Wars Games

With Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor being the only two overwhelmingly well-received Disney-era Star Wars games released so far, there’s a lot of critical and financial pressure for upcoming Star Wars games to succeed. There’s especially pressure for upcoming Star Wars games that have been stuck in development for several years, such as Quantic Dream’s Star Wars Eclipse and Saber Interactive’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake. Both games were first announced in 2021, but official news on gameplay, story, and other features has yet to emerge. Eclipse and KOTOR’s lack of information are attributed to internal development issues, with KOTOR being initially developed by Aspyr but later switched to Saber Interactive in 2022.

Star Wars Eclipse may face an uphill battle for both development issues and the setting of the game itself. When Quantic Dream was announced as the developer of Eclipse, many fans called for Disney to replace the developer due to Quantic Dream reportedly hosting a poor workplace environment and struggling to hire employees. Eclipse is additionally set in the High Republic era of Star Wars, set roughly 200 years before Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. While the books of the High Republic initiative have been well received, its first live action appearance in Disney+’s The Acolyte was met with mixed to negative reviews. Given that The Acolyte was many fans’ first encounter with the High Republic, some players may be put off by Eclipse’s place in the timeline.

Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Future

Respawn Entertainment itself has its hands full with Star Wars game development with the upcoming Star Wars Zero Company as well as the third entry in the Star Wars Jedi series. Development on both of these titles may be strenuous as EA recently laid off about 300 employees from Respawn, resulting in the cancellation of a Titanfall universe game. Meanwhile, Zero Company is already facing an uphill battle because of the very nature of being a single-player turn-based tactics game, a relatively niche genre that not every player may enjoy gameplay wise. On top of Zero Company, Respawn has to ensure the third Star Wars Jedi game is as much of a hit as its predecessors to make Star Wars Jedi one of the most celebrated trilogies in the entire franchise.