Star Wars Expanded Universe not canon, what does this mean for gaming?

Before we start, go google what canon and non-canon means. I am not explaining it, you are not my apprentice.

In case you guys haven't heard the Star Wars story group at Disney have decided to make a lot of the expanded universe stuff non-canon this way they can build on the Star Wars movie universe without creative hindrances. This is a good move, most of the expanded universe stuff is poorly written and rubbish and would make for terrible movies. Also all the spoilers would be in the books much like what we saw with the first few seasons of Game of Thrones. (The TV series and the books have started to depart from each other a lot now so its less of an issue)

Back to Star Wars, as far as video games go Star Wars has had an awesome run. Some of the best video games ever made are set within the Star Wars universe, games like Knights of the Old Republic, The Jedi Knight series, Empire at War and Force Unleashed were all fan favourite and great lore additions to the Star Wars universe. Knights of the Old Republic in particular seen by many as the best RPG of all time.

Disney also  also said that is that all games and merchandise to follow will be part of the new canon. I feel this is big mistake for their video games and tabletop products going forward.Now they are free to change their stance on this as they go, I wouldn't say its written in stone at this point. But its a discerning stance for them to take.

How does this effect X-Wing Miniatures?

Those of you who play X-Wing know there are a lot of characters featured in the X-Wing games that were from the expanded universe, they really add some flavour to the game and allow the fans to play as some of their favourite characters. As of Disney taking over Star Wars a huge amount of them are no longer cannon. This includes; Sontir Fel, Kyle Katarn, Mara Jade, Corran Horn etc etc. They are still part of the game just not part of the Star Wars movie universe cannon anymore.

After the addition of Judo to the game as an advanced Tie Fighter pilot I was really looking forward to seeing Galen Marek added to the game flying his Sith Fighter, I was also hoping Darth Maul would be added as the star ships they both fly look very similar and in fact could be treated as the same ship. There is now less likelihood of this happening as Galen Marek is part of the expanded universe and its unlikely we will see him join the game.

Whats also quite noticeable at the moment is the new naming scheme of the ships. They no longer have an expanded universe to draw from so we are getting a lot of ace pilots being called things like "Zeta Ace" for example, wouldn't it be better if they continued to draw from the existing expanded universe as a nod to the fans of that material? Wouldn't X-Wing as a game be better if it wasn't confined to movie canon? How does X-Wing a really small niche product effect the Star Wars movie universe as a whole. It doesn't really.



Does this mean we won't see new installments of The Force Unleashed and Jedi Knight?

From what I understand Ubisoft is allowed to do whatever they want with their existing Old Republic Universe. Its set three thousand years before any of the Star Wars movies and cannot really do any damage. Also I think its being treated as non-cannon.

But what does this mean for game series like; Force Unleashed or Jedi Knight? Will we ever see Garen Malek or Kyle Katarn wielding light sabres again? If so this really bugs me. What are the future Star Wars games going to look like? With the way video graphics are at the moment its actually about time for a Jedi Knight series, it would sell well to the current market for the nostalgia and its already existing brand value.

The same goes for the Force Awakens, uh well Force Awakens 2 wasn't great and pretty much ends the story but don't we still want to see the Galen Malek character in future Star Wars games? (They don't have to be Force awakens titles)

What do Star Wars games look like right now?

Well thus far we have Battle Front, (The third installment in the battlefront series) its a must for uber Star Wars fans and not only is it visually stunning but has awesome immersive gameplay. I could get into how I feel about the DLCs but that is not the purpose here. So far battlefront offers no new characters only those drawn from the movies. Another example of modern Star Wars games is the new Star Wars infinity, these games are for kids so I haven't played them but they appear to be platform third person action games set in the movie universe loosely following the movie storyline.

But there may be pardon me, a new hope! Though at the moment the project is cancelled It sounds like there is interest in re-birthing Star Wars 1313, if you don't know much about this its set in the deepest levels of Coruscant and though not confirmed it appears you get to play a young Bobba Fett as he makes his way through the mean streets learning to become the badass bounty hunter we all know and love. I'll drop a link to see what it looked like prior to its cancellation. Hopefully Disney does decide to pick this up and continue its development because it really looked to be shaping up to being an awesome game.

Conclusion

Though they seem to have made a decision, its not really set in stone yet. Only time will tell if we will see these character re-emerge in the tabletop or video games. Who knows, if market research shows that the fan demand is high enough maybe we will see our favourite expanded universe characters sooner than we think.


Click here to see Star Wars 1313 game play preview, you will notice the main character is not Bobba Fett in the video, apparently this is because they wanted to keep it a secret.

Star Wars : The Force Awakens - Some explanations! (SPOILERS)

I went to watch TFA again and its really hard to stop myself from smiling the whole way through. My face is literally stuck in a smile position for over 2 hours. I am not a smiler, In fact I have a pretty bad case of resting bitch face on a good day so its really a feat if a movie can cause such an anomaly. Moving on!

1. Finn's awakening - Is he force sensitive?

People are asking why Finn suddenly had a change of heart on his first proper mission for the First Order. As explained in the movie Storm Troopers are all conditioned (brain washed) to follow orders without failure. Hux is even confident enough to say that this is better than the cloning process and really trusts in his men. But we see Finn after losing one of his comrades quickly have doubts about what he is doing with his life in the First Order and shortly afterwards completely betray them by freeing the Resistances best pilot Poe Dameron and escaping with him.

The force moves through all living things, the movie is called the force awakens, it clear here that the force is moving through Finn because he has a part to play in the coming events. Whether this is also because Finn is force sensitive or if was just chosen by the Lightside of the force to assist Rey in finding her path is yet to be revealed.

I personally don't like the idea of a non-force sensitive character using a light sabre in the movies. We know it happens all the time in the expanded universe and we know Han uses Luke's light sabre to open up a taun-taun to save Luke's life in the Empire Strikes back but that's not the same as wielding it as a weapon and fighting both Storm troopers and a Dark Jedi.

As you know force sensitivity is supposed to be something any random individual can be born with it does not have to be hereditary. In fact within in the Jedi order as the Jedi are forbidden to love its unlikely that a hereditary born force user would be part of the Jedi Order but we are getting into the prequels now and I'll try avoid that as much as possible.

In short I'd like to see Finn becoming a Jedi padawan with Rey in the next film. He doesn't need to be as powerful but it would be awesome having more than just one Jedi fighting on the side of the Rebels, we don't need to continue to carbon copy the original trilogy, as Star Wars fans we want more light sabre fights not less!

2. Rey's skills - Is she a Mary Sue?

There is a lot of talk about Rey being overpowered and a bit of a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue is a basically a character who always has a good outcome or that things come easily to without any effort.

Lets look at the Rey character in a bit more depth to see if this is the case. She was abandoned apparently by her parents with a careless alien on a desert planet. It appears she is like a psuedo-slave of some sorts as she has to work as a scavenger in the harsh environment of Jakku. It isn't made clear if she started as a slave and earned her freedom or if she was always free but has had to work as a scavenger from a young age.

We know Rey can fly ships and repair them from her time on Jakku, she has just never flown outside of the planet. We know Rey is very familiar with Imperial Star Destroyers and other imperial tech as she scavengers through Star Destroyers and lives in an AT-AT.(Omg how cool is that she lives in a fracking AT-AT) So there is nothing unnatural about her aptitude to fix things here, this is a developed skill.

We know that Rey is efficient at using her staff as a weapon. When she goes to Rescue BB8 from the Junker he doesn't try to argue with her, even though she is just a young girl and he has the higher ground from whatever Bantha like animal he was riding there. He doesn't take her on, he is scared of her from this its clear she has a reputation on Jakku for being a bad ass. Further more when people try to steal BB8 from her to give to the empire she fends them all off by herself with just her staff. So we need no further explanation as to why:

1.Rey knows how to fly star ships
2.Rey knows how to fix star ships as well as take them apart.
3.Rey knows how to use a melee weapon
4.Rey knows her way round base design and equipment

Rey is able to do these things because she has had a hard life, without parents and without anyone to guide her. She has all these skills because she as had to have them to survive. If she had not developed these skills to the place where they are she probably would not be alive in Jakku today.

With these points in mind Rey is not a "Mary Sue" she is a SURVIVOR. Her whole life she has been preparing for this calling. She thought she was waiting for her family but it is in fact she was waiting for the force to awaken inside her. Now it is called and now all of her knowledge and skills are to be tested.

3. Kylo Ren's defeat - Was he too weak?

There are a lot of complaints about Kylo Ren being to weak of a villain. We know he took out most of Luke's Jedi Order and we know he is very strong in the force because he can stop blaster/plasma bolts in mid air and he can force his way into people's minds to get information. He is also of the Skywalker lineage, a descendant of Darth Vader someone he is striving to be better than every day.

So why was Kylo so easily defeated? This is simple, he wasn't, It was blatantly obvious if you watched the movie; Kylo was ganked. He took a full bow-caster shot from Chewbacca to the abdomen. This is the weapon Han and Chewbacca have been using to one shot storm troopers all movie, Han even took out more than a few with a single blast once or twice. Its a lethal weapon and it would have killed a normal person. Kylo only survives the wound using the dark side to help bind his wounds and keep him alive. He also uses the pain to channel his hatred and to continue the fight.

After being wounded by Chewbacca he takes on Finn, who is no novice to using melee weapons as all storm troopers are trained in melee combat at the academy. Its important to note that Finn is in the top percentile of storm troopers this is part of the reason Captain Phasma pays such close attention to him. Though wounded, Kylo easily defeats Finn leaving him on the floor near death. Not without Finn getting a few hits on Kylo leaving him even more wounded than he was before.

Rey now comes into the fight and its clear at first she isn't that as skilled as Finn. In fact it clearly looks that Kylo is winning as he attacks and chases her through the forest. Kylo asks Rey to join him so he can train her in the dark side this triggers something to happen to Rey, its not explained if she recalls a lost memory or if the force just bestows knowledge upon her but she suddenly fights back with new vigour and power. After being wounded a few more times Kylo is finally defeated by Rey. But not killed, as the planet conveniently puts a big fissure between the two combatants.

I don't see in any way how Kylo can be seen as weak here. He was probably only fighting at a third of his real capacity due to being critically wounded by Chewbacca in the first place. What I do see is some pretty solid movie logic and great story telling as Chewbacca, Finn and Rey defeat a very badass enemy as a team.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens to Kylo Ren next. I am sure next time he will not be suffering from a bowcaster wound and will be at his best and I think our heroes are in for a hard time Empire Strikes Back style!