Quantic Dream is hard at work on Star Wars Eclipse, a new adventure game set in the High Republic era of Star Wars – a golden age of Jedi hundreds of years before the birth of Anakin Skywalker. While a lavish teaser trailer paints a thrilling picture of the game’s setting, details are still scarce.
During a recent interview at G-Star in South Korea, director, writer and Quantic Dream founder David Cage told IGN Japan that Star Wars Eclipse is “the most ambitious project of our studio.” While he did not go into detail about the game, he gave us some new insights to what we can expect.
Among other things, Cage reiterates that Star Wars Eclipse will be markedly different from Detroit: Become Human, which released on PlayStation 4 back in 2018 and PC the year after. In particular, Detroit: Become Human was more about “anticipation” than sci-fi, imagining a near future in which androids become sentient.
David Cage recently gave a talk at South Korea’s G-Star Summit. | Image Credit: Quantic Dream
“We spent a lot of time trying to imagine our world 10, 15, 20 years from now – what would the technology be like? Do we believe that androids would be part of our societies?” Cage explains. “I think Star Wars is a very different setting – it’s far, far away, as you know. So it’s something different.”
Cage says that Quantic Dream learned a lot from Detroit: Become Human, calling it the studio’s “most accomplished game overall” and the “best implementation we could make of the vision we had 25 years ago about how to tell a story where the player is the hero.” But that doesn’t mean that Quantic Dream will run it all back for Star Wars Eclipse.
“Star Wars is not going to be a skin of Detroit. The two games will be very different, very different, although we will also of course use what we learned. But it’s not going to be a copycat by any means; it’s going to be a very different experience,” Cage says.
First announced back in 2021, Star Wars: Eclipse has remained largely a mystery since its striking first reveal. Earlier this year, Quantic Dream quashed rumors that it had been delayed and was suffering development trouble, noting that it had yet to announce a release date. In a subsequent interview, Quantic Dream CEO Guillaume de Fondaumiere said that Eclipse would retain Quantic Dream’s fundamentals despite being an action-adventure game at heart.
‘A mutual respect’
Quantic Dream, for its part, has been in the news quite a bit since 2018 due to toxic workplace allegations — allegations that Cage has strongly denied. In August, NetEase announced that it was acquiring Quantic Dream, and the studio has since revealed Parallel Studio’s Under The Waves in a bid to expand its publishing label.
Cage says that NetEase alleviates the “struggle for resources” faced by many studios, and that the publisher provides access to “tons of technologies” that are of interest to Quantic Dream, including machine learning and advanced AI.
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Quantic Dream joins a number of Japanese studios under the NetEase umbrella, including Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi’s new studio. Talking about what it’s like to work with these new students, Cage describes feelings of “mutual respect” and cultural connections between France and Japan.
“I think in Japan, also, there’s this very strong interest for storytelling in games. And Detroit has been a big success in Japan, with a lot of support from the fans and very high sales figures for a non-Japanese game. So we’re really, really proud of this,” Cage says.
Talking about the ongoing work on Star Wars: Eclipse, Cage says that the original opporunity came together “very, very quickly,” and that the studio didn’t have a specific story in mind ahead of time. Cage himself is a fan of the franchise, being about 10-years-old when the original movie was released.
“They became part of our culture, and part of our consciousness somehow, and the creative ideas that we had were also inspired by this film, along with some others,” Cage says. “And when we had the opportunity to potentially contribute to such a monument of pop culture, it’s like a dream come true. So we didn’t hesitate for a second, and we just jumped in. It’s just a very exciting project. And it is the most ambitious project of our studio, for sure.”
In the meantime, Quantic Dream continues to keep specific details about the project under wraps, saying “there is a schedule” and that the studio is waiting for the right moment to announce something new.
“It’s the first time we’ve worked on a franchise, but we are approaching it with the same passion as if it was our own franchise – there is no difference for us. Same passion, same creative ambition, same everything,” Cage says.
Star Wars: Eclipse has not revealed a release date or platforms and is not expected to release until 2024 at the earliest. While you wait, check out every other upcoming Star Wars game currently in development.
Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
Interview by Daniel Robson of IGN Japan.