The details are slim, and speculation is rampant, but there’s strong reason to believe that LucasArts is gearing up to work on an “Open World RPG.”
The news comes to us thanks to a new job posting by LucasArts, which indicates that they are specifically seeking a gameplay engineer to work on an open world RPG. Unfortunately, little else is mentioned to hint at what the game may be, but their track record indicates that it’s probably Star Wars related, or an entirely new IP. LucasArts’ last outing was with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, which failed to live up to its potential thanks to a lackluster storyline and incredibly short campaign.
Their RPG experience is heavily rooted in the popular Knights of the Old Republic and they’ve been showing off Star Wars: The Old Republic for quite some time now, but that’s known to be a PC only MMORPG in development by BioWare. It may be a bit late in the schedule to start hiring for a game announced back in 2008, plus the job description specifically states “Console development experience required (At least one title),” effectively ruling out SWTOR, unless they plan on surprising the hell out of us with a console port. Thus, it seems likely that whatever it is will be appearing on PS3 as well as the Xbox 360.
Considering most of LucasArts’ attempts to produce new IPs like Fracture have been met with heavy criticism, I’m willing to bet they’ll stick with the ever reliable Star Wars theme, but I wouldn’t mind a surprise from left field either. Which would you prefer: a totally new RPG experience, or another chance to sway the influence of the force?
