The cinematic trailer looks great, but there’s so much to prove
One of many CG teasers shown at the 2021 Game Awards had me hoping for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 2 — it’s only a matter of time! — but instead, it was all just a bunch of cool imagery building up to Star Wars Eclipse. That name won’t ring a bell yet, but the studio behind it sure will: this is a Quantic Dream production, for better or worse.
Yep, the studio behind Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human is taking a crack at the Star Wars universe — specifically the High Republic era, which has a lot of untapped potential.
The officiate site sums up Star Wars Eclipse as an “action-adventure, multiple-character branching narrative game,” which is Quantic Dream’s bread and butter. The pitch for this far-off game is that characters will have “their own story, abilities, and role to play in the tapestry of events that could alter the carefully balanced peace of the Outer Rim.”
In other circumstances, I’d be more into this — I was on board with the footage, at least as far as CG trailers go — but there’s the matter of Quantic Dream as a studio grappling with reports of workplace toxicity, which complicates things. I’m curious to see how this game will come together as something a bit different for Star Wars and as a very high-profile IP for these developers to work on. From the look of it, Star Wars Eclipse is far off.
The trailer mentions “early development,” and neglects to say anything about platforms or even a release year, so we’ll see. There’s also that Knights of the Old Republic remake!
