The Best New Star Wars Game Subverts a Boring Franchise Trope

. The new Jedi Order-focused TV series takes place 100 years before 1999’s The Phantom Menace. At least early on, this new TV series seems like it’s telling its own story, with new characters set in an under-explored part of the Star Wars timeline.

Disney has made a point to slow down the frequency at which it releases new Star Wars and Marvel stories in recent years, a welcome change. But considering Hunters has been in development since 2019, it’s not likely that the game was the result of any decrees from higher-ups at Disney’s braintrust. After shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka, and The Mandalorian retread, over-explained, and muddied Star Wars continuity with additional background, it’s refreshing to see both a new Star Wars video game and a new Star Wars television show step back from the familiar, even if the results are coincidental.

There once was a time when Star Wars’ extended fiction was all about introducing weird characters who also exist in this strange reality that fuses science fiction, westerns, and mysticism into a cohesive world. With new pieces of fiction like Star Wars: Acolyte and Star Wars: Hunters, it finally feels like we’re returning to creators taking an interest in telling unique stories in this storied universe.