Star Wars Eclipse was announced at the 2021 Game Awards, but relatively little has been released about it since – no gameplay, no further trailers, and its website says it’s “early in development”. This isn’t really a surprise – from the start, the game has been plagued by issues, possibly landing it in the dreaded development hell. Some believe that the game will never be made at all, or at best, it won’t come out until 2027. That’s a long way away, and that’s somehow the optimistic view.

For starters, the studio making Star Wars Eclipse, Quantic Dream, appears to have been woefully underprepared to make a game of this scale. Described as an “action-adventure, multiple-character branching narrative game” with multiplayer, Eclipse is a huge undertaking. Quantic Dream’s internal engine was built for confined levels and story-driven games, like its previous works Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human. Without enough staff, it seems unlikely it’ll be able to produce anything playable any time soon, and it seems like Quantic realises this – it currently has around a hundred job openings on its website.

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There is a reason it seems to be difficult for them to hire – David Cage, the founder of Quantic Dream, has been accused of creating a hostile workplace where abuse ran rampant, as did misogyny, homophobia, Nazi imagery, and pornography. Extreme crunch hours were allegedly instituted at times, as well as violations of French labour law. He’s also been accused of saying, “in my game, all women are whores” and “at Quantic Dream, we do not make games for fags”. Not an ideal workplace. Star Wars fans, upon the game’s first announcement, were already calling for a boycott of the title and demanding that LucasArts end its partnership with Quantic Dream. Our own Stacey Henley wrote about how David Cage should not be allowed near Star Wars.

I have to agree. In 2021, whether or not the game would collapse under its own weight was just a question – in 2023, it’s beginning to seem more like a certainty, especially since it seems the studio hasn’t been able to resolve its staffing issues. I also have my doubts about how well women will be represented in the game, given Cage’s previous alleged statements and the fact that Star Wars is known for having female heroes.

Cage is also known for making obviously political games, then for some reason, insisting the game isn’t about politics at all. Detroit: Become Human seems inherently suited to talking about racism using robots as a stand-in, yet when asked, Cage denied any political motivations. Star Wars games often have heavy focuses on politics between races – Eclipse is supposedly focusing on a political conflict – but how can we expect a deft and nuanced touch when Cage himself not only refuses to take any outward political stances but tries to wash them out of his studio’s games?

Star Wars Eclipse Official Cinematic Trailer Shot

I was hoping that Eclipse would be a spiritual successor to the wildly successful Knights Of The Old Republic, one of my favourite games of all time, whose remake has been delayed indefinitely. Unfortunately, as time goes on it seems like we may not see it for several years, or even at all, and if we do, it could turn out disappointingly misogynistic and lacking the kind of depth people hope for in the narratives of triple-A games. Because of both their technical capabilities and their attitudes in their previous work, Quantic Dream seems unlikely to be able to create a good Star Wars game.

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