LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has a pretty intimidating task ahead of it: adapt not three, not six, but nine Star Wars movies into one huge video game. LEGO Star Wars and the LEGO series of licensed games have done some big things on a whole, but LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is undoubtedly on a whole other level. Traveller's Tales claims that the game will include a staggering 45 levels, with 5 levels for each of the nine movies, bringing the entire core franchise together in one LEGO game. Traveller's Tales has been making these games for long enough that spirits remain high among fans, but a massive project is a massive project.
The sheer scale of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga begs some organizational questions. How exactly are the game's 45 levels distributed? In terms of physical location, the multi-planet galactic overworld has plenty of room for The Skywalker Saga's level entry points, but how does Traveller's Tales plan on splitting up the stories? Although it doesn't sound like a huge change, LEGO Star Wars going from 6 levels per movie to 5 levels per movie makes a world of difference. In order to capture the totality of each Star Wars movie's plot, The Skywalker Saga may need to make some significant changes to LEGO Star Wars' traditional structure.
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Comparing Skywalker Saga to Early LEGO Star Wars
At the beginning of LEGO Star Wars' lifespan, six chapters or levels per movie seemed to do the trick when it came to storytelling. LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game, which adapted the prequel trilogy, used the structure first. It narrowed down each movie to about six major story beats, then made levels out of them and tied them together with cutscenes bridging the gap between the events of each episode. LEGO Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy repeated the structure to such success that the ensuing LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga simply compiled all the levels of the previous two LEGO Star Wars games and updated them slightly.
All of this is to say that LEGO games are very comfortable dividing stories into six levels. Other LEGO franchises often use the same structure, and even LEGO Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars divided episodes from Star Wars: The Clone Wars into groups of six. The Skywalker Saga's decision to drop down to five levels from six is a fundamental shift in LEGO Star Wars' storytelling structure. The Skywalker Saga doesn't have the luxury of reusing previous levels like The Complete Saga did. On the contrary, it has to pare down the overarching Star Wars story quite a bit.
The most obvious solution to The Skywalker Saga's chapter problem is to just drop a chapter from each previous LEGO version of each movie. However, that structure doesn't work for every movie. For example, the LEGO version of Revenge of the Sith could do without the Kashyyyk level, since that's only a minor part of the film itself, but The Empire Strikes Back's LEGO version is a little short on levels that could be stripped for The Skywalker Saga. It also doesn't help that LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke that single movie up into ten chapters, not six. Traveller's Tales will have to get creative if it wants to make five chapters work for every movie.
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How The Skywalker Saga Could Address Its Chapters
Perhaps the most obvious possibility available to The Skywalker Saga is to make use of its overworld. The Skywalker Saga bills itself in large part on its sprawling, heavily detailed overworld that's full of things to do. In order to strip down the story elements contained within chapters, The Skywalker Saga might have special one-time events that take place in the overworld while the player is progressing through the plot. Since players are going to spend so much time in the game's overworld anyway, plot-relevant events would be a great way to get fans accustomed to navigating it. The aforementioned Revenge of the Sith chapter on Kashyyyk is a great example of a level that could be reduced to a quick battle and a puzzle that unlocks the next chapter in that movie.
Another solution would simply be to make The Skywalker Saga's levels longer than previous LEGO Star Wars levels are on average. For example, previous LEGO adaptations of Return of the Jedi feature two Endor levels: one representing the speeder chase there, and another representing the attack on the Imperial Base on Endor's forest moon. These plot points are separate enough to deserve distinct levels, but in The Skywalker Saga's case, they could also be stitched together into one big chapter about the Battle of Endor with an extended cutscene in the middle. Such long levels could be a little cumbersome for a LEGO game, but The Skywalker Saga's implied overworld scale might make longer levels feel more appropriate than usual.
The Skywalker Saga Defines LEGO Storytelling
Whenever any franchise undergoes major changes, there's bound to be growing pains. LEGO Star Wars is already going through some pains, as The Skywalker Saga's repeated delays indicate. It could face some more in the future once fans finally get their hands on the game. It's always possible that some Star Wars fans will take issue with how Traveller's Tales truncates the franchise's overarching story for the purposes of The Skywalker Saga. However, it's a necessary risk; 45 chapters is already a massive undertaking for Traveller's Tales, which traditionally makes LEGO games with well under 30 levels. The last thing it needs is to aim for a whopping 54 chapters in The Skywalker Saga.
Although there are risks involves in The Skywalker Saga's shorter movie adaptations, there's also plenty to gain. Whatever creative ways Traveller's Tales uses to tell the Star Wars story in sufficient detail with fewer levels at hand will give the studio valuable experience in developing the next LEGO game. Fans already know that LEGO Star Wars is growing in some important departments, like the overworld and the combat system. It's only natural that the LEGO game franchise evolves its means of storytelling at the same time. Whatever Traveller's Tales chooses to do in The Skywalker Saga, it'll be helpful and informative as it decides the overarching LEGO franchise's future.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga releases in Spring 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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