Features

Star Wars 1313 - Welcome to the real dark side...

We're at E3 in what has to be the coolest booth here this year. We've been invited by Activision upstairs away from the showfloor to the LucasArts room to meet the team behind Star Wars 1313.

It feels like we're on board a ship on some sort. But it's not the star ships you're used to, because this game gives a completely different view of the Star Wars universe. This time Star Wars goes a thousand miles underground...

An early demo

Gio Corsi from the LucasArts team introduces today's demo. They're not ready to reveal the lead characters yet or the final storyline, so the demo we see features test characters.

In Star Wars 1313, you are a bounty hunter in the most dangerous place in the galaxy, Level 1313. First you'll need to truly become a bounty hunter, and you'll need to work out how to survive in the world of 1313. The scene opens at the surface of the planet and quickly heads down to the subterranean world a thousand miles below. In this world, the characters are more sinister than you know and the story you'll follow is dark.

A gun battle ensues with a brilliantly orchestrated finale - our team-mate throws the enemy into an escape pod, closes the door and jettisons it out like a bullet straight through a ship which explodes. "Was that entirely necessary?" our man says, "No?" comes the reply!

The Force of the entire LucasArts group is in this game

Gio continues his talk by sharing a great rule from the studio. "One of the rules in making this game is: never see anything in a cut scene that you would rather play."

Star Wars 1313 draws upon talent from all the Lucas Arts studios. As well as the games studio it pulls from the animation studio, film studio, sound and light. The result is a game being built with an incredible level of skill, detail and innovation.

Bringing their best game

On the 'making of' video we're shown, one of the LucasArts team comments that everyone involved is bringing their best game to this game. "Every day I come in and see somebody working on something I've never even seen before." They're figuring out new techniques to solve challenges and looking at the Star Wars universe they all know in a brand new way.

When you mix people like the CGC supervisor at Light and Magic, and lead animators with the cameraman from Return of the Jedi and so on, you know you're going to be getting something really special.

A true cinematic experience

Visually, if there's a game that earns the use of the word 'cinematic' it should be this one! Key visual areas such as lighting and rendering are being crafted with the highest possible quality, and performance capture is moving on...

When the actors got together, the crew noticed that there was so much more a casual glance could portray than several lines of script. So to capture those moments, a motion capture head rig was designed with two cameras to give an entirely new depth of view.

The use of this rig reveals things you wouldn't see on a normal camera - all those micro expressions that pop in and out in one quick frame that make such a difference. And it makes for a strong and compelling character experience in the game.

These guys are clearly passionate about creating Star Wars 1313 and it goes down well with the audience here at E3. We hope they will be revealing more soon, but for now, it has a firm place on the 'one to watch' list.