New footage of the canceled Star Wars: 1313 has been unearthed by The Vault, showing off gameplay of the franchise’s iconic bounty hunter Boba Fett as he explores several locations. While some of the video shows the game off in an early stage of production, it’s still a fascinating look at some gameplay elements, including exploration of a bar, chasing down targets, and establishing Fett’s reputation as a no-nonsense gun-for-hire.
Star Wars 1313 was originally revealed at E3 2012, and would have seen players descend into the criminal underworld of the Galactic Empire’s capital city, Coruscant. A year later, and the project was officially dead after Disney’s acquired the Star Wars franchise and put all ongoing projects on hiatus. The location of the game–Level 1313–eventually made its way into several episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Interestingly, Fett was reportedly never meant to be the star of the game. As author Jason Schrier noted in his book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, LucasArts’ leadership was instructed by Star Wars creator George Lucas to replace the original protagonist with a pre-empire version of Fett. This came well into the development of Star Wars 1313, after LucasArts had cast actor Wilson Bethel, established a backstory for his character, and had spent significant time on his technical development.
LucasArts was closed down later in 2013 as part of LucasFilm’s restructuring, with the Star Wars license ending up in EA’s hands. While the critical results would be mixed–just look at the lasting legacy of DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront II for an example–EA would eventually strike gold when it greenlit Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Since then, Disney has expanded on its vision for Star Wars video games. DICE won’t be making Battlefront III, but EA has confirmed that a Star Wars Jedi Sequel is in development alongside a first-person shooter from the Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond team and a strategy game by Respawn alongside new studio Bit Reactor. All three of these games are being spearheaded by Respawn.
Beyond EA’s borders, you can also expect Star Wars: Eclipse from Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream, while Ubisoft is working on an open-world Star Wars game under the LucasFilm Games umbrella.
