Need to know
What is it? A parodius Lego adaptation of all nine Star Wars movies with PS2-era sensibilities.
Expect to pay $50/£40
Developer TT Games
Publisher Warner Bros.
Reviewed on Core i5 12600K, RTX 3070, 32 GB DDR5, Windows 11
Multiplayer? Local co-op, online through Steam Remote Play
Link Official site (opens in new tab)
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I knew I was in for a good time with Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga when I began the Prequel Trilogy portion and saw Qui Gon Jinn and Obi Wan’s ship get stopped at a traffic gate floating in space. After a quick video conference with the Trade Federation—who hastily tried to hide their evil plans, labeled “evil plans”—Qui Gon and Obi Wan breeze through the gate, accidentally knocking a hapless battle droid, sending it floating off into space.
The Skywalker Saga pushes its charm, with practically every cutscene featuring some visual gag or punchline at the film series’ expense. Kylo Ren is pumping iron and flexing as Rey contacts him in that infamous scene from The Last Jedi. Ben Kenobi pops some popcorn before watching Leia’s message to him in A New Hope. At the beginning of Revenge of the Sith, Lego Count Dooku makes a cheeky plastic pop noise as Anakin scissors his head off.
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)
The Lego Star Wars series has been defined by its commitment to drop-in couch co-op, and The Skywalker Saga is no different in this regard. With a second input method and the press of a button, a player two can take control of one of your secondary characters. This is perfect for laptop play in a dorm, or maybe if you’re one of those new millennium dad types with a media center PC, but it’s not a great fit for desktop play, and The Skywalker Saga cries out for online co-op. TT Games hasn’t implemented any online play system of its own, but there is Steam Remote Play to fill the gap. I’d never used the feature before, but it didn’t take too much wrangling to get a friend of mine halfway across the country controlling Han Solo to my Obi Wan in A New Hope, all without him owning a copy of the game to boot. Unfortunately, this proved a bit too demanding an ask for one or both of our shaky internet connections, and the Comcast corporation proved the greatest opponent of fun in a galaxy far, far away. I lost my friend and had to invite him back three times over the course of an hour of play. As it stands, you’ll need pretty reliable internet on one or both ends to enjoy online co-op in this game—and need to own the game on Steam rather than Epic.
The Skywalker Saga is not a particularly demanding game, and I was able to maintain a near-locked 144fps at 1440p with an RTX 3070, but the graphics menu is relatively sparse. I didn’t have any significant graphical glitches or performance hiccups aside from the game resetting its refresh rate back to 60hz every time I quit and came back—annoying, but not a dealbreaker. What it lacks in graphics options, it makes up for with an impressively granular accessibility menu. I appreciated the multiple sizes of subtitles, different settings for health regen/static HP pickups, and alternately making QTEs easier or even doing away with them altogether.
The Skywalker Saga is an impressive package, successfully adapting some of the most iconic sci-fi movies of all time with equal amounts playful mockery of and loving adherence to the source material. The only shame is that its sense of lively fun stands so in contrast to stories of the game’s development, mismanagement allegedly laying undue stress and suffering on the people who made this whimsical journey possible. I can only hope that the developer’s next project is delivered under better circumstances.
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