Over the last year, I’ve watched my colleague George Foster foam at the mouth with excitement forDragon Ball: Sparking Zero(you canread his review here). His passion has been infectious, so much so that I read all of the original Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z manga. And then he told meSparking Zero’s campaign allows you to change the outcome of pivotal story moments. As a long-time sucker for all things alternate history, I couldn’t care less. But what if I did?Dun dun dun…
It got me thinking beyond the iconic Shonen to other legacy franchises and how interesting it would be to explore their rich histories and reshape their outcomes. Naturally, I landed onStar Wars, whose constant battles between good and evil have a lot in common with Goku’s journey
One of my core childhood memories is playing through the old Revenge of the Sith tie-in game, which to this day I hold up as the best Star Wars game of all time. It has a hidden, alternate ending in which Anakin Skywalker beats Obi-Wan Kenobi on the shores of Mustafar’s lava ocean. Such an ending opens up a whole mystery box of questions — what would Darth Vader look like without the shackles of his suit? Would Anakin have been able to save Padme? What would have happened to Luke and Leia?
Not once did I ever guess that Anakin would turn on Sheev Palpatine and kill him, taking the Imperial Empire for himself. It’s a huge twist, but I was so enamoured with the new possibilities that I even wrote fanfic in my little journal at the time. Thank god I hadn’t discovered Wattpad yet.
The original Battlefront 3 planned to tackle similar what-if? ideas like pre-cyborg Grievous and a villainous Mace Windu. We even have concept art of Jedi Vader. But unfortunately,it was cancelled “two yards from the finish line”.
Marvel explored the possibilities of What If? in the Disney+ series of the same name (to middling results), trying to tie the answers into a wider multiverse storyline. The simplicity of moving a few pieces, stepping on a butterfly and altering the future, is why this idea can work so well. It’s supposed to be an anthology driven by imagination, bringing to life those questions we all had as kids, not offer a traditional narrative itself.
TV and comics can be brilliant mediums to explore such a question, but as Sparking Zero proves, giving us the agency in a video game to directly influence the outcome brings to life those juvenile conversations with friends perfectly. What if Anakin didn’t kill Count Dooku? What if Qui-Gon Jinn survived The Phantom Menace? What if Luke Skywalker defeated his father and took up Palpatine’s offer?
Like Dragon Ball, so much of Star Wars is driven by its duels, with larger-than-life characters clashing saber against saber in beautifully intimate, focused fights. There’s ample room for a game that focuses on these iconic bouts. Revenge of the Sith even had an entire mode dedicated to them, and it was great!
Did I mention it was the best Star Wars game of all time?
A game focused solely on the duels, perfecting the combat and encapsulating the meticulous movements of every single character, would open the door for us to change the outcome of each story so that we may ask these questions and finally see the answers played out. Star Wars is approaching its 50th anniversary Disney, what better way to look inward at its rich history than that?
