LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga dev explains the game’s new mechanics

A former LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga developer has offered a rare insight into the game’s new combat mechanics.

While communication around the game has been mostly non-existent since its announcement at E3 in 2019 – as called out by an ex-TT Games employee earlier this week – yesterday’s new gameplay trailer did give us our best look yet at its new gunplay and melee combat, both of which have been overhauled as part of the game’s new engine.

Former TT Games dev Jack Chapman revealed that where blaster combat in previous LEGO video games involved blindly mashing the fire button at enemies, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga instead hews far more closely to modern shooters.

“I wanted to move away from the old style of aiming found in previous TT titles, to allow players to move, aim and shoot as freely as possible,” he tweeted. “The big push was to get the functionality much more up to scratch with modern shooter mechanical expectations.”

Jack also touched on just how far the game has come in the past few years – ‘you [originally] had to drag a reticule around the screen to rotate your character and move effectively’ – and how the team has focused on making sure the game’s duels are ‘fun, accessible and juicy’.

You can see glimpses of that new blaster and melee combat by hitting play on the trailer above, including Finn fighting Sith Troopers atop a Star Destroyer in The Rise of Skywalker and Rey taking on Praetorian Guards aboard Snoke’s cruiser in The Last Jedi.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is currently slated to arrive in spring 2022. For more on the saga-spanning sequel, check out six sets and minifigures from the new trailer that we’d love to see in real life.

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