E3 2012: Star Wars 1313 has a reason for ditching light-sabers for blasters

If there’s one thing that E3 has done right this year, it’s the fact that a number of big budget games that were shown, have the visuals to match their ambitions. So far, Star Wars 1313 is looking like one of the best so far, as it completely broke the line between in-game action and cinematics.

It looks like a Star Wars film come to life, minus the midgets and painful dialogue. The only thing missing though? Light-sabers, something which the developers have a good reason for doing.

“It’s not that I think that that’s overdone,” said creative director Dominic Robillard to Kotaku, when quizzed about the lack of midichlorians and Jedi in the game.

But the criminal underworld of 1313 is a little more grounded and that has to live in the mechanics of the game. Having mechanics that are limited by human ability makes things more relatable, then we can put all the cool stuff you can do into the gadgets and weapons.

You still get to do all of these amazing things because of the environment the game takes place in and because of the gear you have. But at the core you still have these vulnerabilities that are a bit more relatable, so you won’t have the demigod complex of a Jedi.

While the demo shown so far has two human bounty hunters working side by side to get into the mysterious 1313 level beneath the planet of Coruscant, don’t expect them to actually even appear in the main game, as they were just there for show, at E3 this year.

But as for the visuals being so awe-inspiring, that’s thanks to Lucasarts teaming up with the entire Star Wars Empire, in order to create the game. 1313 already has the versatile Unreal Engine 3 running the game, but with a bucket-load of add-ons, while special effects masters Industrial Light and Magic, alongside Skywalker Sound and Lucasfilm Animation round out the team.

1313 looks ambitious so far, and after the train wreck that was Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, it’s about damn time as well.

Last Updated: June 7, 2012