Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga release date, trailers, news and gameplay

What’s better than Lego and Star Wars? Well, Lego Star Wars, of course! We always love playing the Lego Star Wars games and get excited when a new one is on the way. Each one is filled with fun stories and lots of charm. What’s more, they’ve all aged well, too, with some dating back to the era of sixth-generation consoles back when Lego Star Wars first landed on the scene. 

Yep, it’s been more than 15 years since the original Lego Star Wars was released on our consoles. Original games were centered on the prequel trilogy and were well-received. However, it wasn’t until Lego Star Wars 2, when the original trilogy received the brick treatment, that the series managed to hit its stride.

Fast-forward to 2021 and the entire Lego Star Wars franchise is being rebuilt, tiny brick by tiny brick, in Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. This will be the first Lego Star Wars game since 2016’s The Force Awakens, and The Skywalker Saga looks to be by far the most ambitious Lego Star Wars we’ve ever seen. It could also be the most feature-rich Lego game of all time.

Filled with stories, characters and settings from all nine mainline Star Wars movies, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has set its ambitions high. As well as a wealth of new and familiar content, the game will also make use of all the lovely new features and graphical tech provided by Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and modern PC hardware.

Although we’ve been looking forward to Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga for a while, the release date (or release window, to be more precise) was finally narrowed down at Gamescom Opening Night Live. We now know it’ll be with us in ‘Spring 2022’, so sometime between March and June 2022.

While we wait, here’s everything you need to know about the game so far. 

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga – what you need to know

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga release date

Do, or do not – there is no try. Those immortal words of Jedi Master Yoda seem to have been forgotten by the developers over at Traveller’s Tales and their Warner Bros. publishers. Despite trying to hit a ‘Spring 2021’ release date (so, March-June) after already having missed a suggested October 2020 window, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga release date is now set for ‘Spring 2022’.

At the moment, it remains unclear when we’ll get a solid release date for the game, as even though a new trailer was dropped at Gamescom 2021, we were only given the vague window of ‘Spring 2022’, which falls between March and June. 

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga trailers

A new gameplay trailer for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker dropping during Gamescom Opening Night LIve. Check it out below.

We may not have a solid release date, then, but we’ve still seen lots of what the game has to offer already. Way back in the summer of 2019 we were treated to a reveal trailer, showing off the franchise’s glitzy new visual look, and the series’ trademark humor, albeit in a teaser that didn’t appear to show any gameplay:

Then in August 2020 we were pleasantly surprised to see a gameplay trailer that matched the visual polish of the teaser. As well as showing off key playable scenes from the franchise, from dogfights to lightsaber duels, the game still features the wacky toybox-like potential for mischief that previous Lego games have had. Keep an eye out for C-3PO riding a bantha, for instance:

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga setting and gameplay

As mentioned earlier, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is in the enviable position of being able to adapt tales from right across the entire ‘Skywalker’ saga. So in other words, you’ll be playing scenes from the original trilogy (Star Wars: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi), the prequel trilogy (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith) and the sequel trilogy (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker).

That does mean the excellent Rogue One, Solo: A Star Wars Story and The Mandalorian TV show are not set to feature. However, the Deluxe Edition of the game is set to  include a ‘Character Collection’ bundle, which will throw in six character packs including characters from The Mandalorian, Rogue One, Solo and even the brand-new Star Wars: The Bad Batch animated series, as well as an additional pack including ‘Classic Characters’.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is expected to be a slight departure from the Lego games that have come before it, promising deeper gameplay than the simplistic platforming and combat of previous Lego games.

Each episode of film will feature five story missions, for a total of 45 core levels in the game. Combat has been sharpened up – lightsaber duels will focus on combo building, with a mixture of light, heavy and Force attacks wielded in tandem, while ranged shooting combat moves the gameplay to an over-the-shoulder viewpoint, ala Gears of War or Uncharted. It’ll still be family friendly, but might not be quite as button-mashy as previous Lego games.

You’ll have plenty of hub worlds to explore before taking on the core missions, and these will be littered with secrets to find and collectibles to… er… collect. Hubs will range from the desolate wastes of Tatooine to the forests of Endor and the dark heart of Exegol, where the Emperor holds court. It’s an incredibly ambitious undertaking then, collating all the major sights (and sites) of the near-complete Star Wars universe. All of these locations will include random encounters too – you might be messing around before being ambushed by a Tie Fighter fleet, for example.

Vehicular based play will also be significant. The gameplay trailer shows the player taking the controls of everything from a podracer to an X-Wing, a Snowspeeder to those stupid horse things that turned up in Rise of Skywalker. 

There will be variety, collectibles and fan-favourite characters and scenes aplenty then. Who knows – it may even wash away the bad taste The Rise of Skywalker left us with. We’ll have more on Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga as it’s revealed, so keep checking back to TechRadar for all the latest news.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga news and rumors

Gamescom 2021 unveiling

Gamescom 2021 will be the place to check in if you’re looking for brand new details on Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. The game will be unveiled in a ‘world premiere’ format during Opening Night Live on August 25.

That world premiere tag might not be entirely accurate, as we’ve seen the game in action before, but this will be the first time we’ve laid eyes on The Skywalker Saga since its delay. As such, we expect developer TT Games has been hard at work revitalizing and polishing the game all this time.

You’ll want to tune in to Geoff Keighley’s Opening Night livestream then, which will take place on Wednesday August 25, with a start time of 11am PT/ 2pm ET/ 7pm BST. 

Running over two hours, Keighley promised that the third annual Opening Night Live showcase will give us “a new look at this holiday’s biggest upcoming video games and what lies beyond.”

You choose the order

We know that players will be able to play across nine films of the Skywalker saga but according to the Warner Bros page for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Sage, players will be able to access all of them right away and play “in any order they choose. They can direct where to go and how to play.” This means a good amount of freedom and the chance to play through all of your favorite worlds first.

In an interview with StarWars.com, Jonathan Smith, head of production and strategic director at TT Games, said this freedom of choice “is a really important principle for us”, adding, “We love stories and storytelling; but we also feel, both as gamers ourselves and with particular concern for young players driven to experimentation and change, that stories exist to be played with, however the player wants.”

Play on the light or dark side of the force

According to the Warner Bros page for the game, players will also have access to “hundreds of playable characters from throughout the galaxy and every era of the saga” from Luke Skywalker through to Darth Vader. Of course, this means you’ll be able to choose whether to play on the light or dark side of the force. 

Plenty to explore

The game’s official page also highlights some of the locations that players will be able to explore “such as the desert of Geonosis, to the swamps of Dagobah and the snowfields of Starkiller Base”, never mind the space exploration. It will, apparently, be possible to revisit a planet at any time, too, so there’s no need to worry about never seeing your favorite settings again. 

Nothing to see at Lego Con

It’s been a while since we’ve had any solid information on Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker saga and we had hoped that, after the game’s absence at E3 2021, June 2021’s Lego Con would be the place. However, the game wasn’t present during the show and it remains unclear when the game will release or where we might hear more about it.