EA Didn't Deserve Star Wars
In its prime, LucasArts was untouchable. As both developer and publisher, the studio had an incredible track record—from classic point-and-click adventures like Full Throttle and The Secret of Monkey Island, to some of the best Star Wars games ever made. Knights of the Old Republic, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight 2, and the original Battlefront all fell under the LucasArts banner. When it outsourced a project to another studio, its choice of developer was always perfect.
In 2012, Disney spent $4 billion on Star Wars and killed LucasArts a year later. It was the end of an era—and the beginning of an ill-advised exclusivity deal with Electronic Arts. Giving Star Wars to such a mainstream, corporate, risk averse publisher was a terrible idea, and resulted in a period of mostly boring, unimaginative Star Wars games. In eight years, EA didn't do a single interesting thing with the licence, and the deal's imminent expiration is nothing but good news.
Related: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Spawned Some Great (And Some Truly Terrible) Video Games
LucasArts greenlit plenty of bad Star Wars games—but a lot of creative and surprising ones too. There was DroidWorks, a physics-based puzzle game where you could build your own custom droids. The Gungan Frontier, an ecology simulator that saw you seeding life on Naboo's moon and creating a balanced ecosystem. Masters of Teräs Käsi, a 3D beat-'em-up with an all-star cast of Star Wars characters. Episode I Racer, a superb racing game based on The Phantom Menace's podrace scene.
That's just a handful of the weird and wonderful Star Wars games LucasArts released over the decades. Not all of them were great, but there was variety. These games took us to different, unseen
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