Star Wars: Eclipse, all we know
Star Wars
The cinematic trailer for Star Wars: Eclipse shown during The Game Awards evening may have been yet another World Premiere without the show's gameplay, but for Star Wars fans it was still a moment of great importance: for the first time ever. the imagery of the so-called High Republic took shape on the screen, a new cycle of stories on which it seems that Disney and Lucasfilm want to focus the future of Star Wars.The announcement was not so unexpected. Already in September there was talk of this infamous project in which Quantic Dream, the studio of David Cage famous for having developed Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human, had been engaged for at least a couple of years. According to the well-known leaker Tom Henderson it would have been a licensed Star Wars title; a tip later confirmed by GamesBeat's Jeff Grubb, who predicted a first trailer at The Game Awards. But what is this High Republic and why is it so important to the future of Star Wars?
Here's everything we know about Star Wars: Eclipse.
What is l 'High Republic?
Star Wars: Eclipse, two Jedi prepare for battle Known initially with the code name of "Project Luminous", the High Republic is an ambitious multimedia project, consisting of several stories, which represents the next step into the ever-changing imagery of Star Wars. These stories take place in the era of the so-called High Republic, an era that precedes the Skywalker Saga by 200 years and which begins 800 years after the fall of the Old Republic: you know the two Knights of the Old Republic and the BioWare MMORPG , Star Wars: The Old Republic? Here, those are a bit canonical and a bit are not, but in any case the High Republic comes later.The premise revolves around the "Great Disaster", an event that disturbs hyperspace and upsets the planets of the entire galaxy, forcing the Jedi to intervene just as the space pirates known as Nihil decide to attack the most vulnerable planets, wreaking havoc. This cycle of stories should be divided into three phases: the first, called The Light of the Jedi, began in 2021 with novels and comics and will continue for at least the whole of 2022, while the subsequent ones, temporarily titled Quest of the Jedi and Trials of the Jedi , will arrive in the future. For the moment there are no cinematic transpositions of this "massive interconnected story" - as it was defined - which had been proposed as early as 2014, but we know that one of the future TV series on Disney +, The Acolyte, will take place in the last years of 'High Republic.
Eclipse
Star Wars: Eclipse, Yoda in the Jedi Council Hall Coming to the title Quantic Dream, we actually know almost nothing about the actual game. The beautiful cinematic shows a series of scenes that summarize a bit of all the classic imagery of Star Wars: duels with lightsabers, space battles, droids and various aliens, exotic markets, breathtaking cities, bounty hunters and so on. All alternating with two important details: the eclipse that gives the game its title, and the ritual of an apparently new alien species that awakens something or someone at the end of the trailer. And here the classic would suit: "I have a very bad feeling".There are, however, some goodies for fans of the saga, among which the Jedi in the Council room certainly stands out: it is precisely Yoda, who was 900 years old when he passed away in Return of the Jedi and therefore has lived the era of the High Republic which, as we have said, dates back to 200 years before The Phantom Menace.
So no gameplay, but considering the Quantic Dream curriculum and the information published on the official website, we can put together a preliminary picture: Eclipse will be a strongly narrative third-person adventure. The game will take place in a completely new Outer Rim system, and therefore on never-before-seen planets, with an entirely new cast of protagonists. The Alta Repubblica, in fact, is a project that grants the artists involved - writers, designers and so on - a kind of carte blanche over which only a sort of commission is in charge of verifying that the stories are coherent in their interconnections.
Despite this, Star Wars: Eclipse promises to be a very different experience than the canons we are used to. We do not yet know who the writers involved are, but the official site talks about a game - still in the early stages of development, it must be said - that will allow us to observe the complex intertwining from multiple points of view: the cast of protagonists will be very large and the players they will have to make numerous choices that will branch the story in different directions, leading to multiple outcomes or endings. Knowing Quantic Dream, it is possible that the story told in Eclipse deals with more realistic themes, while taking advantage of the atmosphere and space fantasy contexts of Star Wars.
Star Wars: Eclipse, a mysterious alien plays the drum in the trailer What we saw in the trailer looks promising and inspired, at least visually, but we need to understand what the French studio's approach will be and how will tell this new story. Notwithstanding that Star Wars is not new to irreverent interpretations, just think of the novel I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole which deviated a lot from the classic narrative of the franchise as early as 1998. Needless to add, we are really curious to discover this new side of the Alta Repubblica, although there will be a wait: the trailer does not indicate any release date and a potential 2023 seems to us somewhat optimistic.
The very first trailer for Star Wars: Eclipse only served to give us a taste of the atmosphere that will be breathed in the game, but what we saw felt decidedly powerful and in line with what one would expect from a Star Wars story. The High Republic is an unexplored territory in which authors can give vent to their creativity without being bound by the dictates of the Skywalker Saga: for this reason alone it will be worth following the new Quantic Dream project until its release, unfortunately still unknown.
