Even disregarding its expanding network of TV shows and other spin-offs, the Star Wars movie franchise is really long. Sitting down to watch all nine core movies takes a lot of time, but for fans that's often a good thing. The Star Wars franchise is filled with memorable characters and compelling lore; long Star Wars movies have more opportunity to introduce concepts, characters, and storylines that flesh out the universe. That dense story structure is why LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is such a compelling sell. In spite of the scale of its source material, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is determined to capture all of it.
As recent trailers for The Skywalker Saga have made clear, Traveller's Tales' next LEGO Star Wars game has done more than just retell the core story of the Star Wars franchise. It has expanded everything into a playable experience across 45 levels, as well as a huge overworld. Traveller's Tales has been so ambitious in developing The Skywalker Saga that the game's campaign may end up being longer than the nine Star Wars movies themselves. That growth is a great indication of just how much the LEGO Star Wars brand has grown.
Comparing Star Wars and The Skywalker Saga's Lengths
Star Wars movies have always offered long watch times. While their lengths vary significantly, they generally land between two and two-and-a-half hours. Watching all nine Star Wars movies would take at least 25 hours. For the sake of comparison to The Skywalker Saga, one could round all nine movies up to a full three hours, which comes up to 27 hours of viewing. With that in mind, it's no surprise that The Skywalker Saga is such a huge game; Traveller's Tales has a lot of source material to work with.
Still, the structure of The Skywalker Saga means it could readily surpass the length of the nine Star Wars films. LEGO Star Wars games usually break up movies into about six levels, but The Skywalker Saga only uses five. The Skywalker Saga's levels are likely to take at least half an hour to complete, since each level has to contain more Star Wars story content. They could be much longer thanks to The Skywalker Saga's branching paths, reworked boss battles, cutscenes, and more. A total of 45 story levels that possibly take half an hour each would mean that The Skywalker Saga's campaign takes around 23 hours to complete.
Yet it seems likely that The Skywalker Saga will take even longer to complete. If Traveller's Tales tries to put the majority of Star Wars' events into its levels, they could take well over half an hour to complete thanks to The Skywalker Saga's mechanical innovations. What's more, players have to factor in The Skywalker Saga's overworld when considering the campaign size. Players will likely spend quite a bit of time traveling through the Star Wars universe in search of the next story level. Between potentially huge levels and overworld navigation, it wouldn't be surprising if The Skywalker Saga's campaign takes a good 30 hours or more to get through, thoroughly beating the actual films.
The Significance of The Skywalker Saga's Possible Length
The potential length of The Skywalker Saga's story levels isn't particularly surprising given just how much growth Traveller's Tales has showed off, but it's still a big deal for the LEGO Star Wars franchise. Historically, the LEGO Star Wars games aren't known for their length. Even the story mode of LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, which features 36 levels, only takes around 14 hours to get through on average. The Skywalker Saga has the potential to reach new heights for the franchise in terms of sheer playtime, and by a very wide margin. As a result, The Skywalker Saga could be a more thorough, detailed representation of the Star Wars story.
This change also matters because The Skywalker Saga is likely to set the bar for the next few LEGO games, whether they're also LEGO Star Wars or not. It'd be wasteful if Traveller's Tales came up with so many bold mechanics and world design concepts for The Skywalker Saga, then abandoned them in favor of a simpler model when making the next game. It's more likely that its next LEGO game will borrow The Skywalker Saga's dense levels and new mechanics, getting longer moving forward. Traveller's Tales' LEGO games may no longer be short, simple action-adventure games that release annually.
The Skywalker Saga's Wealth of Content
Even if The Skywalker Saga's level design results in slightly more modest level length, fans should still expect getting through all the game's story levels to take some time. Not only do players have to navigate the overworld to find new levels, but they'll likely get distracted in the process. In the overworld, players can spend time collecting Kyber Bricks, playing minigames, or completing side quests, all of which are bound to take players away from the plot now and again. It's clear that Traveller's Tales doesn't want The Skywalker Saga to be carried by its narrative alone.
It will be interesting to see how the story campaign's length sizes up compared to the main Star Wars movies. The Skywalker Saga has the resources to shave off less corners than its predecessors. Instead, it can revel in the many storylines that construct the actual Skywalker saga which spawned the rest of the Star Wars franchise. In the process, it may very well offer fans more time spent in the Star Wars world than even the movies can muster. If the campaign falls short, Traveller's Tales has at least ensured that players will be battling and exploring the Star Wars galaxy for many more hours after the campaign is through.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga releases April 5, 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
