When We Made... LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is simultaneously a fantastic celebration of all things Star Wars, dampened somewhat by the conditions under which it was made. Chris Wallace tries to unpack that.
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Jonathan Smith, head of production and strategic director at TT Games
EGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is both a fascinating and deeply frustrating game to discuss.
It is, at least by our humble reckoning, one of the best Star Wars games released this side of Knights of the Old Republic. Collecting all nine films in such a varied saga spanning decades is no small feat - and to do so with such humour and charm shows that TT Games has some truly exceptional talent working for it.
The game perfects the delicate balance between
LEGO’s slapstick brand of humour with the need to show due respect to such a beloved franchise - which is all the more impressive when you consider how vocal some sectors of Star Wars fans tend to be about any perceived disrespect to the franchise. Though I’m sure these fans won’t be pleased to hear my assessment that TT Games’ LEGO recreations are occasionally even a superior experience to some of the original films (though I daren’t say which films I’m referring to). Its release is a particularly significant one from TT Games too. Not only is it the latest evolution of what the studio can do with the LEGO licence, it
78 | MCV/DEVELOP June 2022
also marks a return to the franchise that kicked it all off for the developer - as Jonathan Smith, head of production and strategic director at TT Games relates. “We knew this would be a landmark title for the studio – and we set out from the start to redefine people’s expectations for a LEGO game, building on everything we’d learned across 15 years of joyous minifigure fun. There was no better universe for us to take on this challenge than in the galaxy of Star Wars, back where it all began for us with our first LEGO game in 2005. We had no hesitation about that choice; it felt wholly right.”
CRUNCH It is, however, not possible to discuss The Skywalker Saga without addressing a particularly unpleasant elephant in the room. Prior to the game’s launch, over 20 current and former employees of TT Games spoke to Polygon about working conditions at the studio, citing multiple frustrations including overly-tight development schedules, a culture of crunch and outdated development tools. Multiple employees
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