It’s truly a new era for Lucasfilm Games and Star Wars gaming as a whole, but not all the new games are a few years off: enter Star Wars: Hunters, a free-to-play battle arena game, coming to a Switch or Android/iPhone near you! Announced in this week’s Nintendo Direct with a short, gameplay-less trailer (above), a few scant details became clear thanks to the official site’s post. Read on to learn more.
Hunters will be set after Return of the Jedi, where a battle arena makes sense as the New Republic attempts to assert control over the lawlessness the Empire let run rampant, but how much story there will actually be or if it’s just enough to justify the game’s existence, remains to be seen. As a competitive multiplayer arena game, I’ll be curious to see how it plays and how close to Fortnite (the logo for Hunters looks suspiciously close to) and its ilk it’ll be, but for now we know players can be anything from, “…Bounty Hunters, heroes of the Rebellion, and an Imperial stormtrooper,” as well as Wookiees (though I wonder if that’s a class of Bounty Hunter) and whomever/whatever the mysterious woman wielding a red lightsaber happens to be; now that’s a story I’m interested in learning more about, especially as she looks Dathomirian to some degree.
I’ve dabbled in games like Fortnite or Apex Legends for a bit, and even though I’ve done decent, it’s just not a genre I’ve really gotten into or what to spend time on when I have story-heavy games I’m far more interested in. I’m mainly worried and curious to see how aggressive or not the microtransactions/gacha mechanics (aka lottery/pay-to-proceed options) for Hunters become, as free-to-play always comes with a potential cost. I’ll definitely give this a try regardless on my Switch whenever it releases in 2021, so I’ll share my friend code around Hunters’ release if you’d like someone to play with (or defeat easily)!
Not only is the game FTP/download on iOS and Android platforms later this year, but it won’t require a Nintendo Switch Online membership to play; I don’t know if that would be the case if it ever comes to PS4/5 and Xbox, but it’s nice to know anyone/everyone can play if they have those platforms!
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.