Force Arena to add more characters over time, hints Lucasfilm producer

Launched on Wednesday, Force Arena has proven to be an exciting Star Wars venture into mobile gaming.

Force Arena focuses on one-versus-one and two-versus-two combat across several Star Wars landscapes. It also features over 60 Star Wars characters. The game ultimately plays similar to a MOBA—such as League of Legends—while taking inspiration from other mobile titles like Clash Royale. Korean developer Netmarble Games built the title alongside Lucasfilm.

Recently, Lucasfilm’s lead games producer Kristoffer Bergqvist chatted with StarWars.com about the new game. Perhaps the biggest reveal from the interview was a hint that Force Arena will increase it roster with new characters at some point.

“Even though we are incredibly happy with the lineup of heroes in Force Arena, there’s a long wishlist of characters we hope to add in the future,” he said. “Let us know if you have requests!”

While Bergqvist didn’t touch on what characters might be added, I could definitely see Sequel Trilogy heroes like Rey or Kylo Ren arrive during the lead-up to this year’s Episode VIII movie.

As Force Arena is primarily centered around the Original Trilogy right now, I’d love to see it expanded into Clone Wars-era content, too. Characters like Darth Maul or Captain Rex could be excellent additions.

Otherwise, Bergqvist discussed the characters currently included in-game, such as Doctor Aphra, who made her Star Wars debut in the Marvel comic book series Vader.

“We were discussing potential sidekicks to Vader, and as he’s quite a formidable one-man-show, we knew we needed someone who had the skills and the wits to stand out,” he said. “Someone who would not just disappear in Vader’s figurative and literal shadow. Matt [Martin from the Lucasfilm Story Group] suggested Aphra and we never looked back. She was such a perfect fit. It was also a lot of fun to explore what these comic characters looked like when portrayed in a realistic art style.”

Force Arena cards for Rebel TV show characters Ezra, Sabine and Kallus.

Seeing the previously-only-animated characters has been an especially fun part of Force Arena. The cards for characters like Sabine Wren or Agent Kallus provide a more realistic take on those heroes when compared to their style on the Rebels TV show.

Bergvist also mentioned how the player-versus-player format was decided upon.

“The very first talks we had about the game were regarding player versus player combat, and how we wanted a real-time combat experience on handheld devices,” he said. “We wanted plenty of Star Wars characters on screen, but also for the game to be quick and action-focused, so that’s how we decided on the squad-versus-squad scale.”

To read the full interview, head on over to StarWars.com.

You can also download Force Arena for your mobile device via either the iOS App Store or the Google Play Store.

(Top and bottom images taken in-game. Second image source. Third image source.)