By this point most of the folks who properly care about such things are aware that following the merger between Disney and Lucasfilm, the LucasArts game development studio has been shut down. This is upsetting. It’s also hugely overdue.

LucasArts was a creative force throughout the 90’s that had a tremendous amount of impact on gaming as a medium. There were the obvious (and legendary) Star Wars titles at the time: X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Rogue Squadron, Dark Forces, the oft-maligned by loved by yours truly Rebellion. But then there was a wealth of imaginative adventure games that were so excellent that they both defined the genre and kicked off the careers of a few very big names in the industry. Day of the Tentacle, Loom, the Dig, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, to say nothing of the Indiana Jones games. Throughout the 90’s when you heard the term “adventure games” it was common to assume it was referring to a LucasArts game.

That changed completely in the 2000’s as the company’s leadership turned them exclusively towards milking the Star Wars cow. There were a couple of good games to come out of that, but a huge amount of it was utter junk, unfortunately. And them someone who was eulogizing LA pointed out that their last real game was… Star Wars Kinect. 

Sigh. As I said, the closing down of the studio was hugely overdue. It’s also a shame, because they’d been in the middle of a couple of projects that had looked hugely promising (I was pissing my pants in excited toddler-like anticipation of Star Wars 1313), and of course those are now dead. But even with a massive victory like that it was questionable whether LA could ever really have lived up to its glorious reputation anymore. 

I will strive to remember them fondly. I will respect those brilliant minds that spun out of it (Tim Schafer you magnificent bastard). And I will hope that a few of those games I never got to see may somehow live anyway. But I’m going to miss that shit anyway.