The Mandalorian Video Game We Never Got
By: Neville Lahiru
Tags: Disney, Gaming, Star Wars, Videogames, Features

The Mandalorian Video Game We Never Got

Fallout from Disney’s purchase of Star Wars resulted in the death of a promising project

The Mandalorian is shaping up to be one of the finest storytelling a TV series has to offer. Of course, I could be biased being the avid Star Wars fan I am. But at the very least it’s certainly promising enough for people to hold on to their Disney Plus subscriptions. Particularly after that season 2 ending.

As a gamer, I couldn’t help but wonder why this story isn’t already a video game? It has all the elements to make it a fantastic triple-A title. A bounty hunter traveling all over the galaxy on a grand quest? It’s the perfect setting. As it turns out, there already was one.

Back in 2002, LucasArts released Star Wars: Bounty Hunter for PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube. The story focused on none other than Jango Fett and how he became the template for the clone army. The game served as an interesting way to fill in the gap and provide answers for fans.

A cult classic, the game is still available for play on the PS Store.

But this wasn’t the last time we hear of a video game centered around a Mandalorian bounty hunter. By around 2010, a new bounty hunter title was in the works. A spiritual successor to the 2002 game if you will. Unfortunately, Star Wars 1313 never saw the light of day thanks to the Disney acquisition and the shutting down of LucasArts that shortly followed.

The story of the canceled Star Wars 1313 resurfaced after God of War director Cory Barlog tweeted somebody should develop a Star Wars bounty hunter video game. Former LucasArts developer Celia Hodent responded confirming that this was the exact idea behind the long-lost Star Wars 1313 title.

Star Wars 1313, the game that never happened

As Jason Schreier depicts in his book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, its origin story goes back to 2009. At the time, George Lucas attempted to bring a Star Wars TV series to life, titled “Underworld”. Set between Episode III and IV, Underworld aimed to tackle the more mature side of Star Wars. LucasArts had plans for a tie-in video game that would have the same appeal.

Although the TV series was abandoned due to the massive production costs involved, the video game idea went ahead. By 2010, the seeds of Star Wars 1313 were planted. 1313 was in reference to the planet Coruscant’s 1313th level of the underworld. Basically, it’s where the criminal underworld of the Star Wars galaxy live.

Level 1313 has made appearances in Star Wars, most recently in episode eight of the seventh and final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

As with many ambitious video games, challenges are aplenty. This was no different. As per Paste Magazine, the biggest challenge turned out to be George Lucas himself. Progressing with the project proved a difficult task with Lucas’s revisionist tendencies. The most notable change came with the story’s main character.

Death of a bounty hunter

The original idea was to include fresh faces. But Lucas insisted that it should revolve around a familiar character to fans, specifically a young Boba Fett. This meant that the team had to start development from scratch. Regardless, the team crunched ahead for an E3 2012 game demo reveal despite knowing that a big chunk of the game would be overhauled. This explains why there was no indication of Boba Fett whatsoever in the E3 2012 footage even though it was claimed to be about Boba Fett’s early years.

The game reveal piqued the interest of many Star Wars fans and soon, it became one of the most highly anticipated titles at the time. There were leaks that suggested the game would let players use the bounty hunter’s blaster and other weaponry, and function similar to the Uncharted games.

But then Disney happened. The company acquired Lucasfilm for a $4 billion price tag. By early 2013, LucasArts was shut down along with all of its projects. Instead, Disney signed a 10-year contract with Electronic Arts for Star Wars games. As fate would have it, this deal did not turn out well as gamers expected when the announcement was first made.

But the team behind Star Wars 1313 still wanted to salvage what was possible. The hope was to take out whatever code and developers possible, start the project anew at Visceral Games. Unfortunately, nothing materialized out of the efforts. Instead, key members were offered roles in another Star Wars project titled, “Ragtag”.