Luke Skywalker's Son Almost Starred in a Star Wars Game

LucasArts was once working on a Star Wars game that starred Luke Skywalker's son. It's true. All of it.

Many LucasArts projects have become the stuff of gaming legend since the company shuttered its game development division. Games like Star Wars 1313 and the mythic Darth Maul game that almost was continue to capture the imagination of countless fans, even if these titles never actually made it to consoles.

But one project many haven't heard of until now would have definitely been LucasArts' most controversial. Revealed in the pages of Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts, the company was once working on a game that would have starred Ben Skywalker, Luke's son from the Expanded Universe. That game was even given the title of "Star Wars Episode VII: Shadows of the Sith."

Yes, that's right. LucasArts once planned to make a video game sequel to Return of the Jedithat would have pushed the saga's story forward several decades and featured the offspring of our favorite heroes. Hmm, sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Check out the logo (bottom left), among all the tentative logos for many of LucasArts' other concepts, from Rogue Leaders:

Cinelinx took things a bit further by reaching out to former LucasArts creative director Haden Blackman about the project. Blackman said about the concept (that's what it was in the end, just a concept on paper):

Episode VII: Shadows of the Sith would have put you in the role of an adult Ben Skywalker, who was walking the line between the light and dark sides of the Force, unleashing new Force powers never-before-seen in games or movies as he investigated a new threat to the galaxy (a Solo…).

Ben Skywalker first appeared in The New Jedi Orderseries of novels as an infant, and later became a vital part of the Legends timeline, fighting alongside his father and mother, Mara Jade, during several galactic conflicts. Of course, the character was wiped out once Disney rebooted the continuity.

It's also worth mentioning that the concept for the Episode VII game came into fruition way before The Force Awakens was ever even thought a possibility, so there's absolutely no connection there.

Blackman explained that the project never got off the ground, but that it did influence another game:

Again, most of these were just short, on-paper pitches, which I wrote. The only one that had more traction — dozens of design documents, concept art, and even a few prototypes and pre-vis videos — was Scum and Villainy, a bounty hunter game.
Eventually, I ended up pulling elements from several of the pitches to craft the pitch for The Force Unleashed. As we wrapped up TFU, I started working on some new concepts and revisited the far-future concept under the name “Shadow of the Sith.” The Darth Maul idea was also briefly resurrected after TFU2, and different versions of 1313 reused either the Underworld or Scum & Villainy codenames.

So we did end up seeing this game in some form, but never as its true self, in the shape it was originally conceived. What a different galaxy this would be if Episode VII had been a game instead of the billion dollar movie we eventually received.