The Life and Death of Star Wars: 1313

The life and death of Star Wars: 1313 has left many fans with a feeling of ‘what if?’ and in this article we take a closer look at the game that may never be.

Star Wars…you know it and chances are, you love it. It’s never really out of sight or out of mind. The big news recently has revolved around the continuing rumours and announcements regarding the now in production, Star Wars: Episode VII film. But what about video games? Star Wars: Angry Birds 2 had a successful release and Attack Squadron is in beta testing and set to be released soon. But what about the Star Wars title may of us were excited about but never saw the light the day?

In May of 2012 a little company known as LucasArt announced the name of a new video game, to be set in the immensely popular Star Wars universe. The game was titled Star Wars: 1313. The following month at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo (better known as E3) the game was officially revealed to the public with exclusive game-play footage and instantly, video game and Star Wars fans took notice. What we were shown was not a Star Wars game we have seen before or could have ever expected.

When you think Star Wars, you think of the force, Jedi versus Sith and lets face it, the first thing you think about is lightsabers. It’s been cemented in our brains as a generalization of the franchise and sometimes we can forget that the massive expanded universe has much more to offer us. In the past, companies have tried to show off these different branches of the Star Wars tree but for the most part have always fallen back on whats safe (Lightsabers and force pushing). Not to say that any of that is a bad thing of course; games like Knights of the Old Republic and Force Unleashed showed us what it’s like to wield an unstopped blade and fling people across the room with a flick of the wrist. When the franchise is brought out of that norm, however, that’s when we get to see something really interesting.

The widely successful series of Star Wars: Battlefront took away your Jedi powers and put you in control of of a nameless solider for either the Galactic Republic or the Rebel Alliance and threw you into the heart of the raging war. The MMO game Old Republic let you choose whether to be a powerful Jedi or Sith with all the goodies or take the road less travel and play as a Republic trooper, a savvy smuggler, Imperial Agent, or bad-ass bounty hunter. In fact the “non-force” story-lines are some of the best in the game. These games are proof positive that Star Wars games do not have to follow the ways of the force to be successful and what we saw, although briefly, from Star Wars: 1313 was just that.

In fact, what we saw from 1313 was a new, more mature, dark and gritty style that has rarely been touched upon in the franchise. Instead of the force and sabers, this game focused on fast paced action, using the weapons and gadgets exclusive to the bounty hunter character you were playing as. It seemed that fans of the franchise were finally going to get the mature, down and dirty game that many of us wanted. It can’t always be bright with the two suns of Tatooine. Everything seemed to be going well until March 1st, 2013.

On October 30th 2012, LucasArts was sold to The Walt Disney Company (but this is old news). This deal started many announcements from the company, like the confirmation of three new Star Wars films to be released in the coming years, but some announcements we couldn’t even imagine. On March 1st 2013, Star Wars: 1313 was reported to be put “on hold” by Disney. The company stated that they would be mostly focusing on upcoming film projects. However, a representative of LucasArts stated that Star Wars: 1313 was continuing production so here was still hope for this game to see the light of day… or so we thought.

On month later on April 3rd, 2013, The Walt Disney Company announced had “ceased internal development” at LucasArts, and laid off the vast majority of it’s staff. Only about 10 employees were spared so LucasArts could remain open as a licencor. With this closure, that meant the cancellation of all of the current projects, which sadly included Star Wars: 1313.

A Lucasfilm representative stated:

[blockquote]”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.”[/blockquote]

After that, the game was shelved with the hopes that someone would come along and dust it off. As an added slap to the face of 1313, Disney announced an exclusive deal with EA to produce Star Wars games for “the core gaming market”. When Disney was asked if EA would continue Star Wars: 1313 or any other games in development, they responded by saying “We are not announcing and specific titles at this time.”

There were many who had hoped that this title would be continued but as the months rolled by, the likelihood became less and less, and at the end of 2013, Disney chose not to renew the trademark on Star Wars: 1313 and as a result the U.S. Patent Office considered the trademark abandoned.

Still, many hope that the game can be brought back to life, a new title and trademark made and Star Wars fan might finally get that gritty, bounty hunter game that peaked our interest. But until then, we are left with a trailer and feeling of… what if?