Fantasy Flight Games and Lucasfilm Ltd. have just announced an all-new trading card game based on the Star Wars properties, called Star Wars: Unlimited. The game will launch globally in 2024 and, according to the press release, one of the main strategies for launch will be the availability of Organised Play at local game stores. This is a very strategic move, as establishing a community of players and collectors within the game stores themselves has almost always been the key to a TCG’s initial success.
Cards will feature “iconic heroes, villains, ships, and settings” from across a huge amount of Star Wars properties. “including movies, TV series, comics, video games, and everything in between.” Brian Schomburg, Visual Creative Director for Fantasy Flight Games, says that they have “commissioned new art for every card in this game” to give Star Wars: Unlimited a consistent style. Additionally, Schomburg says that Fantasy Flight Games “really thought about what the cards would look like on the table next to one another.” Collectors will be able to pursue alternate cards “with special treatments and variant visual designs.” Fantasy Flight Games says that there will be three sets released per year.
The game has been in development at Fantasy Flight Games for three years, and the company says that Organised Play has been the goal from the very beginning, with OP events ready “on day one.” They hope to include a range of events for fans and collectors from “weekly store-level community experiences to worldwide large-scale events” in order to ensure that the game was “accessible to all players,” says Jim Cartwright, Product Strategy Director for Fantasy Flight Games.
There are a few things to note here; this game seems to be a direct competitor to Lorcana, Disney’s own TCG from Ravensburger that’s set to officially release later this year, in August. Promotional Lorcana cards are already in circulation and have been selling for high prices — four to five figures — on eBay. There’s also the fact that Fantasy Flight Games have been notable in the past not for their overwhelmingly successful TCGs, but, Polygon notes, a string of less-than-inspiring failures; Netrunner, Legend of the Five Rings, and Star Wars: Destiny and KeyForge are all previous projects.
Star Wars: Unlimited is poised to change that for Fantasy Flight Games. It’s an established IP with a massive collector-oriented base that will jump at new artwork. But the key to longevity in a TCG will always be gameplay, and until we see more about the mechanics and strategies, the Jedi High Council will be out on Star Wars: Unlimited.
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