April 3, 2013 by Paul Curtin
Terrible news today in the gaming industry as the iconic LucasArts development studio has been closed down. The studio behind notable successes such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars: Battlefront has laid off all of its 150 employees and officially canceled current projects Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313. A company spokesperson provided the following statement:
“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.”
Star Wars 1313 was one of the most impressive and promising games coming out of last year’s E3, and it’s a damn shame that the game will likely never see the light of day after the recent acquisition by Disney and shutdown of LucasArts. While the studio hasn’t had any hits since The Force Unleashed back in 2008, Star Wars 1313 was the game that looked to put the company back on the map and had a lot of gamers, myself included, excited for the next-gen title’s more mature take on the Star Wars universe.
