| Star Wars | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre(s) | Predominantly action action-adventure |
| Developer(s) | 1981–1985: 1987–1995: 2000–2005:
|
| Publisher(s) | 1981–1985: 1987–1995: 2000–2005: 2006–2019: |
| Platform(s) | Apple II Atari 2600 Famicom NES Super NES Nintendo 64 Master System Dreamcast Game Gear GameCube MS-DOS Windows Mac OS macOS PlayStation 1 PlayStation 2 PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 PlayStation Portable Xbox Xbox 360 Xbox One Xbox Series X/S Wii Wii U Game Boy Game Boy Color Game Boy Advance Nintendo DS iOS Android Nintendo Switch |
| First release | Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 1982 |
| Latest release | Star Wars Jedi: Survivor 2023 |
| Parent series | Star Wars |
Over one hundred video games based on the Star Wars franchise have been released,[1] dating back to some of the earliest home consoles. Some are based directly on films while others rely heavily on the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
Star Wars games have gone through three significant development eras: early licensed games (1979–1993), games developed after the creation of LucasArts (1993–2013), and games created after the closure of LucasArts (2014–present), which are currently licensed to Electronic Arts, and include an EA Star Wars logo.
The first Star Wars games were developed by a variety of companies after Star Wars creator George Lucas licensed the rights to Star Wars video games; several of these games were released under the “Lucasfilm Games” banner. Early licensed games, released during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras of gaming, barely featured any kind of narrative, and many were action titles that either retold the stories of the original trilogy (1977–1983) or focused on a single scene of a film.
Later on, Lucas took interest in the increasing success of the video game market, and decided to create his own video game development company, LucasArts, so he could have more creative control over the games and their narratives. During this era, graphics evolved enough for games to be able to tell complex narratives, leading to games that featured more advanced retellings of the stories of the films, with voice-overs and CGI cut scenes, as well as original titles with new narratives that were set in the same continuity as the films. After The Walt Disney Company's purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012 and the closure of LucasArts the following year, the games developed during the first two eras were discarded from the canon in 2014 and reassigned to the non-canonical Star Wars Legends label.
Following LucasArts' closure, the rights to produce Star Wars video games were reassigned solely to Electronic Arts. Games published during this era are considered canonical to the franchise, and have featured more influence from the Lucasfilm Story Group, responsible for managing aspects of Star Wars canon. The EA Star Wars license had been set to expire in 2023, but in 2021, Lucasarts announced new partnerships for others to produce Star Wars and other Lucasfilm games alongside Electronic Arts.
Although many hobbyists and independent game developers have created freeware games based on the Star Wars movie series and brand, this page lists only the games that have been developed or published by LucasArts, or officially licensed by Lucasfilm.
As of 2020, there have been over 90 million copies of Star Wars games sold.[2]
- ^ "Star Wars Infographic: 40 Years in Gaming". www.igdb.com. Archived from the original on 15 December 2017. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
- ^ Radić, Vedran (2020-12-05). "10 Best Selling Star Wars Games Ranked (& How Much They Sold)". Game Rant. Retrieved 2024-06-19.