Skywalker Saga Announces First DLC of 2023

The most recent title in the ever-popular LEGO Star Wars video game series, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, has new DLC launching soon.

Released last year, the latest LEGO Star Wars game pulls in characters not just from the nine-film Skywalker Saga but several other on-screen properties that exist within the franchise.

In addition to the vast in-game roster of playable heroes and villains, there have also been quite a few DLC character packs, based on The Bad Batch, Solo, and many others.

LEGO Star Wars Adds Luke Starkiller DLC

The official Star Wars site announced a new piece of DLC for LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga to tie in with Star Wars Day on May 4.

A new playable character, Luke Starkiller, will be available next month, free of charge.

Luke Starkiller was, of course, George Lucas’ original name for Luke Skywalker, and it seems likely that this new DLC character will be modeled off of the concept art done by Ralph McQuarrie for A New Hope. Check out that initial concept art below to get a better idea of what the LEGO version could look like.

McQuarrie’s artwork has been used for other Star Wars tie-ins in the past. Hasbro once made an action figure of this particular look.

Here, Starkiller battles an early version of Darth Vader. Perhaps LEGO Star Wars could add this version of Vader as a playable character at some point. This, however, is not presently confirmed.

Additionally, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has also released other DLC packs in the past few months. These include:

• The Clone Wars and LEGO Star Wars: Summer Vacation TV Special packs, released November 1: 
• Rebels and Obi-Wan Kenobi packs, released November 15
• Andor and Book of Boba Fett packs, released November 29

The Tumultuous History of LEGO Star Wars

It was reported in March that further downloadable content for LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was in danger of being canceled due to behind-the-scenes turmoil at developer TT Games.

And that’s far from the only bit of behind-the-scenes drama that fans have heard come out of TT Games. 

Shortly before Skywalker Saga’s initial release, a rather scathing report was published by a third-party site, detailing things like nepotism, micro-management of employees, and a boatload of the thing any game developer fears the most: Crunch.

Crunch, of course, refers to when game developers are forced into working massive amounts of overtime in order to finish a game by its release date. They often do so without being paid for their extra time as well.

LEGO Skywalker Saga was indeed released, however, and became quite popular among new and established fans alike. But the ends do not always justify the means and many TT Games employees were reportedly treated very unfairly during the making-of process.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is available to play now on Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox, Steam, and other consoles.