HB: I don’t think we ever felt restricted at all. Early on, we worked with George Lucas to determine the setting for the game — the era between Episodes III and IV — and he gave us a rundown of what is happening during that time period. He told us the types plots Darth Vader might be hatching, what some of the major characters are doing, and how the Emperor might play a role in any story we create. Once we had an approved story (which took many months), we checked in with George Lucas and Lucasfilm Licensing periodically, but we basically had a great deal of freedom to explore the time period, really push the boundaries of the Force, and tell the story in a way we felt would be most compelling.

AT: Combining DMM and Euphoria was obviously a great challenge. Do you see these technologies used in other projects and for different genres?

HB: I certainly think we can continue to expand on the ways these technologies interact, and the technologies themselves. We’ve barely scratched the surface of simulation-based gameplay, environmental interactivity and destructibility, and bio-mechanical AI. While different genres might be better at exploiting these technologies, I think that many game concepts could benefit from the level of interactions we’ve achieved in The Force Unleashed, and I hope we continue to blow the doors off of real-time simulation moving forward, especially as we become more skilled at building games for the current generation of consoles and start looking towards the next generation.

AT: The upcoming demo features the Tie Fighter Construction Facility level and a different conclusion to that level - one that won’t be in the final game. Is this ending an important segment of the overall story in The Force Unleashed?

HB: We added a new enemy at the end of the demo that players normally won’t encounter at that exact location so that players get a taste for what it’s like fighting a bigger unit.

Star Wars games used to be great. Think the original arcade game in the ’80s. Or the “Super” SNES games and the likes of Tie Fighter and Dark Forces in the 90’s. But the last ten years or so haven’t been kind to fans of the Force. Remember gaming atrocities like - shudder - Masters of Teras Kasi, Obi-Wan and the official prequel games. If you missed them you’re lucky. If you’re curious then feel free to splash out a quid or two for each on ebay. Of course there has been the occasional good ‘un but interestingly these games - Knights of the Old Republic, Battlefront and possibly the early days of Galaxies if you’re feeling generous - were all developed externally. So the pressure is on for next Star Wars game - The Force Unleashed. Released on Sept 19th the game is being developed in-house and has the added expectation of being marketed as the “next film”. Luckily then what I’ve seen and played so far looks like it could banish those Super Bombad era memories for good. I recently spoke to LucasArts Project Lead Hayden Blackman about Force Unleashed, George Lucas and the stresses of creating a new Star Wars game.

You have been developing the game since 2004 - why has it taken so long?

We spent the first year concept and prototyping the game. We had over 100 different concepts which we whittled down to 20. We then talked to consumers and whittled them down to 7. Then we spoke to George (Lucas) and elements from these seven ended up being the Force Unleashed. The next 6 months were spent on nailing down the story. Then we went into a year’s worth of prototyping, building levels and starting the PR and marketing. Early 2007 was the start of full production which took around a year. And since then we have done the bug testing, submission and tuning. Ideally we would have had longer in production.

How do you keep the team excited and focussed over such a long period

It was tough at times. You could find yourself without an illustrator and that could hold things up for 2 weeks. We run a lot of morale initiatives. So we have the Jedi Awards which is a kind of team sprirt thing. I handed out the first one and then the winner each week hands it on to the person they think best defines team spirit. The only rule is you can’t hand it someone in your own discipline. So an artist can’t give it to another artist. We also held regular team celebrations of the game. If you are head down in audio creation you probably have no idea how some of the wider game looks. We also showed the team any big press coverage. But for a while you just don’t know if the game is going to be any fun or not. That was a low period in the early days. We turned a corner when we hit a mid production milestone and then things just motored from there. But I wont lie to you, keeping the team fresh and excited was one of my biggest challenges.

The likes of Mass Effect have pushed videogame characterisation to the next level. How important are things like this, the cinematics and story to TFU?

Obviously it depends on the game but for us it was hugely important to have a powerful central story line. High quality cinematics and facial capture was very important for us. As a company we want to experiment with different ways of telling a story. Cinematics are one way but there are lots of different ways to tell a story.

What kind of audience are you going for with Force Unleashed?

Some of the best Star Wars games like KOTOR and Tie Fighter focus on playing as the bad guy. Was this something you focussed on when developing TFU?

For us it wasn't so much playing the bad guy, even though you are playing as Darth Vader's secret apprentice. It was more about putting down a challenge in front of a gamer. We thought hunting down the last of the Jedi would be a fun for gamers. When we focus tested the concepts we didn't tell the testers anything about the story. One of the overriding feedback answers was that they wanted the apprentice to be human, athletic and powerful. Not too powerful though, as he shouldn't eclipse Vader. But the key thing was that they wanted to look at the character and see that he could be redeemed. Obviously redemption is one of the key themes of the Star Wars saga. They all said it was great hunting down Jedi and being Vader's dog but ultimately they wanted the character to be redeemed.

How important are things like character customisation in the game?

Costumes are just costumes to unlock, though they do look cool. But the lightsaber stuff is the most fun. You can upgrade your saber throughout the game and change more cosmetic things like the colour of it. You can increase all your Force powers too. There is also some levelling or ranking that powers up your character and Force powers. So some powers will recharge quicker and do more damage. There also what we call talents which are passive skills that rank up with you. There are a range of combos too that customise around your play style, whether you are melee or Force focussed.

TFU is set the game between films 3 and 4. Was this a deliberate marketing decision so the game appeals to those younger fans who prefer the prequels as well older fans of the original films?

Not really. It was more about looking at what time period would make the best setting for a new story. We talked to George and wanted to find out what the most fervent time period would be. He felt between the two trilogies was the best. Internally that time period was completely off limits until the third film was done. We went to speak to George after episode 3 was done. He then made that period on limit and riffed a lot about what was happening in that time. You've got all the stuff about Vader and the Emperor's relationship and a lot of the major players were involved. We just felt it was the perfect place in the Star Wars story to set a game. But yes we do think the game will help bridge the generational gap we sometimes see where younger fans prefer the newer films and the older ones are more loyal to the original trilogy.

Did technology drive the game or was it the other way round?

It was a bit of both really. The technology is important obviously but we wanted to make a great game first and foremost. Early on we started talking to the guys behind the physics engine Euphoria but we had already created some concept videos at this point which showed the whole unleashing of the Force concept. Initially we had assumed we would use Havok for the physics. We didn't talk to the DMM guys until later on. So the early focus was very much on the story and game ideas rather than tech. Of course when you get something like DMM and Euphoria it brings on new ideas. We realised we could get these great environmental effect with DMM for example where we change materials on the fly. It helped and inspired us to create a planet full of giant mushrooms for example. So a bit of both then but TFU was driven more heavily by the game than the tech.

You are pitching this game as the "new film". Was this is a conscious decision from the early days or purely marketing hype to create a bigger buzz amongst Star Wars fans?

It happened quite organically early on when began nailing down the story and where the game was set. I love a lot of our games like Knights of the Old Republic and Dark Froces but they don't have Darth Vader and they don't deal with the big events between the two trilogies. Once we got the storyline and once we realised there were some big beats and twists in the plot and characters we saw that the game had started to become more of an event. We realised we had a fun game in development and then the action figures and comic guys got excited and signed up. As games people we had to get excited about the game first and then we got the rest of Lucas excited too. We've got a great team here. We've gone through adversity but hopefully we've created a great game.