A Star Wars life-sim is long overdue

It’s May the 4th, and like I do every May the 4th, I’m scrolling through the list of discounted Star Wars games to see if there’s something I haven’t already played. Something’s different this year, though. I’m struck by how there’s never been a Star Wars simulator — no life sims, no Star Wars meets Sim City, not even a colony management simulator. And it’s a missed opportunity to tap into so much of what makes Star Wars so special.

Star Wars is about Jedi and rebels and fascists, but there’s a massive range of support staff making these high-stakes conflicts possible in unique ways across the stars, essential people and professions who rarely get noticed. Just off the top of my head, I’m thinking:

• Cantina staff, at local bars and on big ships like Star Destroyers and Rebel flagships
• Farmers providing all the food. Even evil Sith lords have to eat.
• Shipbuilders. Who else is gonna replace all those exploded starfighters?
• Droid makers.
• Protocol droids and… whatever it is they do.
• The folks who launder all the Jedi robes.

All of these would make for excellent sims, like managing the shipbuilding needs of the Republic army during the Clone Wars, or building up a chain of intergalactically renowned restaurants that’d make Dexter of Dexter’s Diner blush with shame. Okay, so maybe Star Wars: Jedi — Laundromat isn’t the greatest idea. But Jedi Temple Manager, like a hybrid between a Two Point game and something like Evil Genius? I would buy that so fast.

The Star Wars game situation reminds me a bit of the decades-long problem Pokémon made for itself. Movies and TV shows spin up worlds of exciting possibility, but these worlds exist on the periphery. You only ever get to do or see one type of thing. It’s gotten a bit better for Pokémon recently, with shows like the battle-free Pokémon Concierge and Koei Tecmo’s smash-hit Pokémon Pokopia. If there was any lingering doubt after the onslaught of cozy games in the last decade, these two are yet further proof that people dearly want to exist in these fictitious worlds in non-violent ways. They want to see what the mundanity of daily life looks like when it’s lived under foreign stars and according to fantastical rules. Let me live my Galen/Rogue One fantasy and just be a farmer in the middle of space nowhere!

As much as I’d love a Star Wars farmer or base builder, the best way to pioneer a cozier kind of Star Wars would be a life-sim, something like Star Wars does The Sims. And no, The Sims 4‘s Journey to Batuu doesn’t count. (Do not speak to me of that lifeless dress-up pack masquerading as a simulator.) I mean a proper life-sim game. I mean one that lets you pick a world to live on and a personality that shapes your interactions. One with life paths and jobs, meager little huts to exist in that your effort and sacrifices transform into proper dwellings full of hard-earned fancy furnishings. One where I can be a herder eking out a living on Tatooine, dreaming of a better life — if not for me, then for my children and grandchildren — or a nameless nobody on Coruscant who works their way up to being a successful entrepreneur.

Granted, I kinda understand why most Star Wars games trend toward being blockbuster-style adventures. The folks at Lucasfilm are probably more likely to see the value in a game that looks and sounds like a movie (a la Jedi: Survivor) versus something like Coruscant Department Store Manager. And I can only imagine the challenge of convincing investors that yes, letting players be scruffy-looking nerf herders building the best nerf farm in the galaxy is a major selling point, and no, it doesn’t need multiplayer elements and loot boxes.

Still, the Star Wars game publishing landscape is changing. Lucasfilm wrenched control of the license back from Disney in 2023, and we’re already starting to see the result of that with Star Wars Galactic Racer and Quantic Dream’s upcoming Star Wars game, neither of which follows the blockbuster action-game pattern EA established over the last decade. Both are still a far cry from life sims, but with more developers finally able to take a crack at Star Wars, hopefully we’ll see some of them delve into the galaxy’s less violent and competitive sides in the future.