Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has had a long development cycle, one that predates its official reveal at E3 2019. After multiple delays, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has finally announced when the game is coming out. The Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga release date is April 5 for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC. However, this comes alongside a report alleging harmful work conditions at the studio.
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TT Games also released a new gameplay overview about the game, detailing what players can expect in the “biggest Lego video game yet” that covers all nine mainline films. Players can start on any of the nine movies they want from A New Hope to The Rise of Skywalker. Combat has also been enhanced with greater combos and a counter attack. Shooting is also better since players can aim like any other traditional third-person shooter. It even has a cover system.
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga also lets users jump to multiple planets to explore and tackle side missions. Exploring around also opens up upgrades for the characters classes that apply to the 300 or so characters in the game. The trailer then ends with Mumble Mode, something the early Lego games had instead of voice acting where the characters mumble and pantomime the lines instead of speaking them.
Those who pre-order digitally will get early access to the Trooper Character Pack that is coming a month later for those who don’t pre-order and will be part of the season pass. The seven character packs in the season pass will feature items from The Mandalorian, The Bad Batch, Rogue One, some classic characters, Solo, and the aforementioned troopers. People who buy the digital version will get a classic Obi-Wan that won’t be buyable separately. And finally, those who get the physical Deluxe Edition will get a Lego minifigure of Luke Skywalker holding some blue milk.
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However, it is not all positive news for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, as Polygon also dropped a new report alleging TT Games of fostering a toxic workplace over the years. The report has claims from dozens of current and former employees who all touch on a variety of different topics. Crunch was among the most egregious as employees were expected and pressured to work obscene hours — often 80 to 100 hours spread across six-day weeks — to keep up with the release schedule Lego games have. Other issues include a slow, problematic engine that would lose work, QA testers that were bullied and separated from the core development team, a hostile environment for women (who were also paid less), mismanaged priorities, and more. With all of these alleged issues, many of the sources claimed they were “not surprised that The Skywalker Saga has taken almost five years.”
