Electronic Arts’ “Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes” mobile game will soon be launching a major update incorporating characters from the Emmy-winning Disney+ series “Andor.”
The forthcoming in-game content, which will include new versions of the character Cassian Andor, as well as the additions of fan-favorite villains Major Partagaz and Dedra Meero, marks the latest expansion for “Galaxy of Heroes,” which just celebrated its 10th anniversary last fall.
A decade in, Lucasfilm is still prioritizing updates for the game due to its sustaining popularity: the title has seen more than 150 million players since launch in 2015. “We’ve got players who, on average, are playing over two hours a day with us every single day of the year,” studio general manager at EA’s Capital Games, Erik Larsen, told Variety.
What is it has driven this ongoing passion for “Galaxy of Heroes,” a mobile title that utilizes the Star Wars universe’s hologame table as its own playing field, amid all the other new Star Wars video games that have launched over the past 10 years?
“There’s lots of different kinds of fandom inside of Star Wars and having over 300 ships and characters to come and explore, whether your Star Wars fandom started with the original trilogy movies, like it did for me, or some of the newer content that we’re celebrating, like ‘Andor’ and ‘Mandalorian’ and ‘Ahsoka’ — this game is intended to be an entry point to Star Wars fandom,” Larsen said. “And then you can go and explore and be exposed to characters from comic books and from novels and from streaming content that maybe you didn’t grow up with or that wasn’t your entry point, but there’s so much richness to discover.”
The “Andor” update is on its way, coming just as renewed interest in the show has been spurred by Hollywood’s award season and nominations for the Diego Luna-led TV series.
“We’re lucky enough to be here in awards season, and people are talking about ‘Andor.’ And everybody really enjoyed the last season and what it meant to be boots-on-the-ground rebels and see what it takes to build a rebellion,” Orion Kellogg, executive producer at Lucasfilm Games, said. “And so we’re bringing, you know, Partagaz and Dedra Meero and new versions of Cassian and other characters from the show to the game, because we want our players to be part of that conversation and to get to play. They get to play with these characters and go, ‘Ah, yes, this is how rebellions are won’ — or, ‘This is how rebellions are crushed.’ I think that’s the fun part about this team, is it’s really fantasy fulfilling. ‘Galaxy of Heroes’ is absolutely part of the Lucasfilm strategy. We understand that we have this connection to these millions of players, and we’re super excited to be able to deliver this opportunity to those players. So Capital Games is getting read-ins to new content. They’re behind the curtains with us planning how they can bring these characters to life. They’re getting visual reference and all of that stuff so that we can just continue to tell the stories.”
The fine line to walk here is in preserving the darker vibe of “Andor” — or of any other Star Wars TV series or film — when it comes into the more light-hearted “Galaxy of Heroes.”
“I am a huge fan of how well [‘Andor’ shows] the danger and the realness of the people inside of Star Wars that aren’t Obi-Wan Kenobi and aren’t the lead characters,” Capital Games lead producer Caley Roberts said. “These guys felt down to earth. There was so much tension. There was so much strife in there as they tried to build this rebellion against the Empire, that we wanted to make sure that was felt in any event that we do. And I think that that’s one of the cool things with our holotable is that because we are a holotable game, we can build events that that feel really authentic to the episodes and movies, because they are a small, bite-sized piece.”
Roberts added: “And so even though there’s a larger game, as you move into the different events, those events can have very different tones, and allows us to really focus in on what made ‘Andor’ great, what made the early trilogies great, and really focus in on that. Our players know that when they come into an event, they will really get the authenticity of whatever show or movie we put into that. When we did our Order 66, that felt very authentic to the original movies. We had a bunch of cut scenes of clone troopers and Anakin moving into the Jedi Temple. And I think that it is important that we carry that through and make sure, because if I watch the movies, I want to come into the game, and I want to experience that same feeling. That is very important for us. And with this new ‘Andor’ era, we really wanted to make sure that that shines through, and that that connection from the actual series into the game is felt by our players.”
That means when the “Andor” update arrives in the “Galaxy of Heroes” mobile game, you should expect in-character battle tactics all around.
“You’re not going to see Dedra Meero pull out a rocket launcher, because that would be fun for a video game. You are going to see Dedra Meero be the coldest, most ruthless manipulator of the battlefield. She’s going to send a shiver down your spine, even on the phone,” Kellogg said. “The way they’ve designed those abilities and the synergies, the way that she stands and strikes, same with all the ‘Andor’ characters — it’s really starting from making sure the ingredients are right, and then when you put them all together in all these different ways, you’re going to get a lot of different fun and authentic results.”