Star Wars reportedly being developed at Creative Assembly – WGB

According to a new report, three new Total War games are currently in development at UK studio Creative Assembly, and one of them is based on Star Wars.

This surprising news comes from DualShockers who claim to have received this information from a reliable source, but does not specify what relation that source is to Creative Assembly. It could be someone from the studio, it could be someone from parent company Sega, or it could even be someone’s friend’s uncle who works there.

According to Dualshockers: “As of October 2023, Total War: Star Wars was reportedly the second of three new Total War games that are allegedly in the works at Creative Assembly.

Dualshockers notes that a new Total War game is usually released every year and thus we might see the Star Wars title in the next few years. But they also point out that “…with three new games reportedly in the works, there’s no way to know which is the furthest along in the development.”

To me, the fact that their source didn’t seem to know how far along development was indicates that the source isn’t very close to the story. Perhaps a Sega employee who only has a passing knowledge of what Creative Assembly is up to?

A Star Wars game would be a bold choice because we know from leaked documents regarding Insomniac’s Spider-Man games that Disney’s fees are pretty high. For example, in the Insomniac deal, Disney took 19%-26% of digital sales, depending on the units sold. There were also a raft of other licensing fees.

In other words, Sega and Creative Assembly would have to be very confident that a Total War: Star Wars game would have enough appeal to make it worthwhile. Of course, we must also consider that Disney’s contract with Sony and Insomniac could be quite different from one they offer to another, far smaller company.

Putting aside the nitty-gritty contact details, the Star Wars license does fit with Total War quite well. The obvious routes would be to set the game during either of the first two trilogies so that we wind up with the Empire vs the Rebels or the Clones vs the Republic. Or they could explore some lesser know time periods in Star Wars history.

As for Creative Assembly, they were hit by layoffs in March, likely caused by a decline in sales of Total War games.