Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga Interview

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In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the release of the original Star Wars movie this week, Lucas Arts unveiled Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, which combines both best-selling Lego Star Wars games into one convenient package - and adds a whole host of cool new features to the games. We talked to Shawn Storc, producer of Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, about, as he puts it, "all the fun and interesting stuff" his team has added to the games, the all-new Nintendo DS version, and the future of the Lego Star Wars series.

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Yahoo! Video Games: So, tell us about the fun and interesting stuff you've added to the games.

Shawn Storc: We're taking Lego Star Wars 1 and bringing it up to speed with the features and functionality we have in Lego Star Wars 2, and extending character customization to include all the characters from Lego Star Wars 1. We're going back and adding some vehicle levels to Lego Star Wars 1, reworking some other levels that were a little bit problematic, to make them more enjoyable - the Kashyyyk level, for one.

Right off the top of my head, we're now going to have over 160 playable, customizable characters, 36 story mode levels to allow players to experience the complete Star Wars saga from beginning to end in one game experience. We have 15 bonus levels, bounty hunter levels for Lego Star Wars 1, and the two-player drop-in, drop-out co-op that worked so well across all six movies. Plus, it's important to note that for the first time ever we're including online co-op with the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

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YVG: Is the online co-op going to be drop-in, drop-out as well?

SS: What we're looking to do is mirror the offline experience online. We don't want to break a good thing, we don't want to reinvent the wheel. It already works quite well - people understand it, it's a known quantity. We don't want to mess with a good thing.

YVG: Are you going to be putting in any competitive online modes?

SS: We're going to go with straight co-op, the way it is. This is a very family-friendly product; it appeals to a wide range of ages. Putting in a competitive mode was something we did bounce around, and strictly from a "gamer's game" standpoint we're all sitting here going, "Yeah, that would be great. We'd love to do that". But when we sat back and analyzed it, it really goes against the whole nature of this game, which is cooperation - like, in Story mode, you're fighting as the Rebels against the Empire. We figured we'll leave it the way it is.