Sorry, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" fans, but it looks like your favorite new heroes and villains aren't heading to the latest "Star Wars" game.
That's because the newest characters — favorites like Rey, Finn, and Kylo Ren — are part of a new film, and "Star Wars Battlefront" focuses exclusively on the original "Star Wars" trilogy. It's why you see characters like Luke Skywalker as a young Jedi rather than a rattled old man:
And Princess Leia as a young princess rather than a grizzled general:
That's right: EA, the game's maker, is saying your favorite new characters won't appear in its new game because of a technicality.
"You can’t make a game in 'Star Wars' that violates the canon of ‘Star Wars,'" EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said in a financial call this week.
Given Jorgensen's gig as a CFO, he should be forgiven for unfortunately misuisng the word "canon." He knows not what he says when he uses this all-important word with the likes of "Star Wars" fan(atic)s.
Thankfully, someone must've quickly shaken him, as he followed up with this explanation: "Meaning, you can’t take something from the future and bring it back into the past unless it’s a reference."
And that's the long and short of this situation: because "The Force Awakens" takes place after the events of the original trilogy, and "Battlefront" is based on the original trilogy, it's impossible for characters like Rey and Finn and, yes, even Kylo Ren, to appear in "Battlefront."
But fret not, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" fans — your favorite new characters will almost certainly appear in subsequent "Battlefront" games. "We’re trying to stay tightly connected to the ‘Star Wars’ beat for future movies, and we will obviously in future 'Star Wars' games be able to tap the new characters and vehicles and so forth,” Jorgensaid added.
Whew. That was a close one!
Better still: you can almost certainly guarantee subsequent "Star Wars" games in the near future. "Star Wars Battlefront" reportedly sold around 13 million copies, making it one of the most successful games (commercially) of 2015. And there's nothing quite like piles of money to motivate a corporation to make more of what brought in said piles of money!
