Force Unleashed II licensing push

Toys, books and clothes will accompany the blockbuster launch of Star Wars: Force Unleashed II on October 29th.

LucasArts is treating the upcoming sequel as a true ‘event launch’ similar to a Star Wars movie. The firm adopted a similar tactic for the first Force Unleashed, which went on to sell over seven million units across the globe.

We see Force Unleashed as a big Star Wars event,” said LucasArts executive producer Haden Blackman.

We feel like it is a genuine part of the Star Wars lore and it continues the saga. So licensing is fully behind it and we are doing most of the stuff you would expect from a major Star Wars launch.

We definitely know that people who never played a Star Wars video game before decided to get Force Unleashed because they read the graphic novel or the book, and wanted to see how it played out in the game. And we’ve seen those who own the game buy toys and books, too.”

Although the original Force Unleashed received positive press, Star Wars games have had a chequered critical history. Blackman says LucasArts is now desperate to avoid poor-quality games so not to damage the Star Wars brand.

Star Wars fans have been forgiving over the years,” Blackman added.

But we don’t take that for granted. We are so paranoid about tarnishing Star Wars. We want to make every game as good as possible, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

The Force Unleashed II is a better game. Whether it reviews or sells as well, I have no idea.”

Other new Star Wars games in the works include LEGO Star Wars III and Star Wars for Kinect. And LucasArts is also looking at creating titles for Sony’s motion-sensing controller, PlayStation Move.

We looked at Move quite extensively,” said Blackman.

As a company we are very supportive of both Move and Kinect. We are keenly interested in finding the right games to support that specific motion-sensing technology.

We have people internally at LucasArts who are actively looking at it.”