The Basics:
Star Wars 1313 is a third person, action adventure game set in the underbelly of Coruscant. We play the role of a bounty hunter who ventures into level 1313 where the criminal organizations of the Star Wars universe gather and have created a city of “scum and villainy”. The game was announced at this year’s E3, along with some game-play featuring the technical and creative talents of LucasArts, ILM, Lucasfilm Animation, and Skywalker Sound in an attempt to bring the Star Wars gaming franchise and LucasArts back into competition with other game producing companies. Besides bringing all the different Lucas companies in to help with the production of this new game, a large amount of attention has been geared toward the idea of a “mature” Star Wars game. While there is no official rating as of yet, the developers have stated that they will be trying to achieve the M rating. In addition to this, the official website does require a birth-date in order to obtain access (which is common for most game sites related to an M rated game).
The Game-play:
So far we have only seen three game-play videos, all within the same part of the game. The game seems to rely on a cover system, and contains stunning visuals. The game-play’s graphics are some of the best I have seen and have a great cinematic feel that is often compared to the Uncharted series for the PlayStation 3. There is still no word on whether or not this will be a multiplayer game, but I think since they have already set up two possible lead characters, it certainly has the potential.
Link to the gameplay footage:
The Technology:
Since Star Wars 1313 has such amazing gameplay and texturing, many people are convinced the game will not be running on current systems, but on next gen consoles, those not due out for another few years. The game was designed on the popular Unreal Engine, who’s recent works include Dishonored, Gears of War 3, and Batman: Arkham City. A program called Mari was used for texturing the environment and characters. As far as I could tell, Star Wars 1313 will be one of the first video games, if not the first video game to use Mari to texture the digital world. Mari has been used mostly for films, including Hugo, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Real Steel. The use of such a program is probably tied with ILM’s attachment to the project. I think I’m looking forward to the visuals of Star Wars 1313 more than anything.
The Characters:
While little is known about our main character(s) at this point, there are a few things we can speculate on based on different hints and pieces of information coming out. The biggest mystery surrounding the main character is that, according to a report from Brendan Sinclair and Giancarlo Varaini from Gamespot, is that we did not actually see the main character from the game. The one we saw was simply a stand in. What does this mean? Well, it could just mean that they didn’t have the time to include the real main character by E3, or it’s someone that everyone knows, so they want to keep it under wraps until closer to release. The other character reminded me slightly of Dash Rendar from the Shadows of the Empire series. No more has really been released officially about these characters, and I doubt we’re going to see much until the game is closer to stores.
The Release Date:
Like I said before, the common theory among gaming sites and across the web is that this will be a title for next gen systems, and those systems also do not have a release date. We could end up waiting another three years for 1313 to be in our hands; we just don’t know. But the fact that they’re already releasing game-play footage is a good sign that we’ll be hearing more about the game in the not-so-distant future.
Ryan Zasso first entered the Star Wars fan community in early 2010 with the podcast Fanboy’s Guide to the Galaxy. Interested in doing Star Wars related writing, he began writing for the Star Wars Report in 2011.
https://twitter.com/TheOneZasso
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The Star Wars Report: A Star Wars Podcasting Network and Website.