‘Star Wars Eclipse’ Will Retain the Fundamentals of Quantic Dream’s Game Design
Star Wars Eclipse will retain the core style of game design that players expect from Quantic Dream, despite a larger scale and a more action-adventure approach to gameplay.
IGN Japan recently spoke to Quantic Dream CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière, who has stated that Star Wars Eclipse will feel in-line with the studio’s other titles, even with a much larger scope and potentially a greater variety of gameplay:
“I think with each new title we try to innovate, we try to explore new ground. With Star Wars Eclipse we’re certainly going to keep the fundamental elements of a Quantic Dream game; very strong story, very strong characters, multiple playable characters, and of course, giving the players the possibility to change, through their actions and decisions, how the story unfolds.”
The title is set at an unspecified point in the High Republic Era, which covers hundreds of years representing a time of peace and prosperity for the Republic before its fall into corruption. While Phase One stories included in the High Republic Initiative start approximately 232 years before the destruction of the first Death Star, visual cues from the trailer (including the wreckage of an N1 Starfighter and a battle involving a Trade Federation Lucrehulk) indicate that the story is set much later in the era, closer to the events of The Phantom Menace.
While the trailer was completely cinematic as opposed to featuring anything in-engine, it indicated that elements like lightsaber combat, space battles, and exploration of the galaxy far, far away will all be selling points of the finished product. Even with the new approach, De Fondaumière says that Star Wars Eclipse is set to be a Quantic Dream title at heart:
“Where the formula is changing, we said very clearly we are doing an action-adventure, so the action elements are also going to be very important. This is something we’ll be able to speak about in the future, but keep in mind, it’s an action-adventure.”
Quantic Dream’s titles include the likes of Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human, which feel like modern translations of the point-and-click adventure games of the 1990s, albeit with a much greater emphasis on player choice. But De Fondaumière says that something like Star Wars gives them an opportunity to expand beyond their usual horizons:
“When we had the opportunity to work on Star Wars we said yes immediately because we were drawn to it. But we will continue to do what we do best, which is passionately work, craft our game with a lot of attention to detail, and with Star Wars Eclipse, we want to bring a whole new original story to the Star Wars universe… We really wanted to do a Star Wars game, that particular franchise with whom we grew, we discovered, and were in awe of as children.”
Star Wars Eclipse is not expected to arrive anytime soon, with some reports indicating that the game may not hit the shelves until 2027 or 2028. However, Quantic Dream has indicated the title is not undergoing extensive delays as no release window has been officially announced for the game.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
