Writer’s Note: This feature was written before the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. However, we were excited to see the theories in this piece actually panned out!
With the arrival of Star Wars: The Last Jedi in theaters, fans are hungrier than ever for news about Disney’s ambitious plans for Star Wars Land—aka Galaxy’s Edge– due to open in 2019.
Since confirming the project at D23, Disney has set the bar higher than ever before for the incoming Hollywood Studios expansion. Galaxy’s Edge won’t just be Tomorrowland with a Star Wars spin. Disney plans to change the landscape of theme parks forever with the creation of a land where guests don’t just visit and observe adventures and props from that galaxy far, far away, but where they actually become part of the Star Wars universe. While Disney has been generous regarding details about the project—from plans for a stunningly immersive Star Wars resort to hints about flagship attractions—what we have seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg.
While we can garner few hints for Disney may have in mind from news releases and their previous work of Pandora: The World of Avatar, there is another unusual source where Disney Imagineers may have been pulling some inspiration.
Video games.
Indeed, the connections between Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and a pair of popular Star Wars videos games are far closer than you might realize.
1. The power of immersion
Image: Disney
“Immersion” seems to be the favorite buzzword of Imagineers in recent years. Both Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Disney’s Pandora beautifully showcase the power of immersion in the theme park setting. Gone are the days of simple prop museums and ambiguous dark rides. Modern audiences don’t just want to observe their favorite stories—they want to dive head-first into them.
Video games thrive on immersion, particularly a unique subset of games called MMORPG’s—short for Massively-Multiplayer-Online-Role-Playing-Games or MMO’s for short. For those unfamiliar, that’s geekspeak for online games where thousands of players from around the world all step into a shared universe together like a giant sandbox. Rather than being given a linear story to follow, players are encouraged to explore that world at their leisure and to make “choose-your-own-adventure” style choices within quests that vary from player to player. Participants become characters within the shared world where players form intricate communities complete with crafting systems, social events, and interest clubs.
Star Wars fans are no strangers to the MMORPG concept. Star Wars Galaxies was one of the first MMORPG’s to gain mass popularity (even before its more famous cousin, World of Warcraft), and ended up being a game so loved that even after it was shut down in 2011, fans banded together to create emulator versions of the game so they could keep playing. It’s successor, Star Wars: The Old Republic, maintains a steady player base of several hundred thousand players. Both games host their own economic and social systems, where players can take on the Empire one night and sip blue milk in a cantina with friends the next.
Image: Jett Farrell-Vega (Screenshot from Star Wars Galaxies, Sony Online Entertainment)
The language Disney has used to describe Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is strikingly similar to that used by MMO developers. Stop for a moment and think about the concept described earlier: a shared-world experience where players/visitors become part of their favorite stories through complete immersion. The pattern is almost exactly the same, only Disney is bringing it to the forum of real life, where guests of diverse backgrounds will participate together in the Star Wars experience. Both the little girl playing pretend as Rey and the super-practical grandmother who scoffs at the idea of make-believe will participate in the atmosphere of immersion in the unpredictable world of Galaxy’s Edge.
Disney has described in detail their plans to make every element of Galaxy’s Edge feel like you are a citizen in the Star Wars universe, from the food at the cantina to the toys available at merchandise stops (no action figures!). Even the land’s fictional location won’t be a replication of Tatooine or Endor to mimic the films but will represent a new planet within Star Wars lore.
2. Quests instead of tours
Image: Jett Farrell-Vega (Screenshot from Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare)
It cannot be overemphasized what a game-changer the immersion concept is, and the more information Disney releases, the more likely it seems that, intentional or not, their end goal aligns remarkably close to replicating something like a living video game. One area where this possibility seems especially strong is in the description of Galaxy’s Edge’s flagship attractions.
In the past, most theme park attractions surrounded the concept of a tour of our favorite stories. Even the Navi River Journey at World of Pandora falls into this category to an extent. For a few brief minutes, we are given a leisurely or thrilling tour of our favorite tales. Often these stories have a haphazard feel to them, like that of the Yeti in Expedition: Everest or the sequel story behind Frozen Ever After. While Disney has done a brilliant job over the years making guests feel like active parts of these attractions, the audience’s role in the ride’s lore can sometimes feel a bit nebulous.
Already in their updates of Star Tours, Disney has taken a step away from this wishy-washy handling of audience’s roles in attraction stories. Within Star Tours, guests now have a specific role as travelers inadvertently harboring a rebel spy.
While MMORPG’s allow players to choose their own path within a game’s shared world, the central story still surrounds completing a series of quests. Players are given a specific objective to fulfill, giving them a sense of purpose and place within that world.
Image: Disney
Galaxy’s Edge will surround two primary attractions. The first will immerse guests in a battle between the Resistance and the First Order. The second—which Disney recently released some juicy new details about—will place guests within the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon itself to complete a critical mission. Here’s the interesting part though—how guests perform during these missions will affect how the rest of the park interacts with them.
We recently explored how escape games give us some clues what Disney may be up to in the future regarding immersive attractions. In these live action games, guests are given a mission to complete within 60 minutes to escape a room by interacting with puzzles. Most video games operate on the same concept, emphasizing the power of a quest to involve and captivate audiences. In games like Star Wars Galaxies and The Old Republic, this could involve anything from collecting animal pelts to infiltrating a galactic crime syndicate.
Quests give audiences much-needed purpose within attractions. It raises the stakes, places us within the story, and takes audiences out of the role of spectators and places us in the position of characters within the plot. Pandora’s “Avatar: Flight of Passage” made a noble pass at this, but even it fell far short of the mark Disney seems to be setting for Galaxy’s Edge. Attractions based on quests opens all sorts of possibilities, such as using mobile technology to give guests mini-missions like scavenger hunts. The sky is the limit, which leads us into one of the coolest video game-Galaxy’s Edge connections announced so far.
3. Faction standing
Image: Jett Farrell-Vega (from Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare)
In video games like Star Wars Galaxies and The Old Republic, player choices matter significantly, particularly among factions within the game’s world. The large and obvious ones would be good guys and bad guys—the Rebellion/Republic and the Empire. However, your choices also affect your standing with groups like The Hutts, The Bounty Hunters Guild, even with political figures like senators and the royal families. Your standing with these groups can dramatically change how characters interact with you, whether you’re toasted as a friend or shot on sight.
One of the most exciting announcements about Galaxy’s Edge is the suggestion of a faction-based system that will change guest experiences depending on their choices during attractions. The details are foggy on entirely what this will mean but the possibilities are exciting. Might certain attractions give players a choice to side with the First Order or the Resistance? Random stormtrooper patrols in Disney’s Hollywood Studios are fun, but what if stormtroopers within the park interacted with you based on a ride decision to side with the Resistance?
“Contraband? What contraband? I don’t know anything about contraband. Who said anything about contraband? I don’t know anything about contraband. Hail the First Order!”
What if bounty hunters might seek you out in the park or characters might remark that you’re the best crack shot in the galaxy (and you have the high score to prove it!). What if kids could spontaneously earn a special badge from a random cast member interaction for their performance on a ride? The introduction of quests that affect even basic factions within the park would mean that every visit to Galaxy’s Edge will be entirely unpredictable.
4. Role-playing isn’t just for geeks
Image: Disney
Theme parks like Walt Disney World already gingerly dip their toes into the realm of role playing. No one blinks an eye when kids play pretend, and little ones visiting Disney’s Hollywood Studios already get a seriously fun chance to do so in the Jedi Training Academy.
Role playing in video games like Star Wars Galaxies and The Old Republic works similar to this, only opening the fun up to adults—basically, friends get together and come up with stories. You could think of it as collaborative writing or improv acting within a video game world. With their imaginations left to run wild, players come up with some seriously cool adventures when given leave to just cut loose and immerse in a shared world. Indeed, “immersion” is something of a sacred term among these communities.
One of Disney’s most ambitious projects for Star Wars land is the building of an entirely Star Wars themed resort. While this is a cool concept, it’s hardly unusual for Disney—only, this isn’t going to be just any resort.
Image: Disney
According to Bob Chapek, Chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, the Star Wars Resort will be, “unlike anything that exists today. From the second you arrive, you will become a part of a Star Wars story! You’ll immediately become a citizen of the galaxy and experience all that entails, including dressing up in the proper attire. Once you leave Earth, you will discover a starship alive with characters, stories, and adventures that unfold all around you. It is 100% immersive, and the story will touch every single minute of your day, and it will culminate in a unique journey for every person who visits.”
While guests can of course enjoy an experience like this as grinning tourists, the description of this resort is seriously a Star Wars geek’s dream. Star Wars movie premieres and comic conventions already inspire leagues of cosplayers like members of the 501st Legion. This resort will take the very concept that role-players use within games and bring it into real life in a crazy immersive environment. It’s the most delightfully geeky concept for a theme park attraction we’ve ever heard of, and we can’t wait to see what Disney comes up for this ground-breaking experience.
5. Video games as actual rides
We’ve mostly focused on ways that Disney may be pulling inspiration from video games for some of the concepts in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. There is one other notable connection between Disney’s Star Wars plans and video games though that is absolutely worth noting.
Disney already has a Star Wars attraction that is basically a video game on steroids.
Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire opened in December of 2017 as a special experience available to guests visiting Disney Springs. The multi-sensory attraction takes virtual reality to new heights as guest are—you guessed it—sent on a mission to infiltrate the Empire. The concept is basically a virtual reality spin on an escape room with interactive sets and a laser-tag element thrown in for good measure. It’s a video game in real life, and it’s a very exciting preview for what Disney may have in store for Galaxy’s Edge in the future. For gamers, it’s a future that looks extra exciting.
What other ways do you think Disney might pull inspiration from video games for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and future attractions?
