LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga features ambitious growth in many core departments, including its character roster. With more than 300 playable characters, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga appears determined to capture the breadth of the Star Wars universe, giving fans as many playable characters as possible. If that's not enough for fans, they can also invest in some of The Skywalker Saga's paid expansions. Players have seven different DLC packs to look forward to, each adding iconic playable characters from Star Wars shows and movies; many of which don't appear in the core nine films.
The Skywalker Saga's DLC lineup features representatives from all kinds of Star Wars media like Rogue One and The Mandalorian, but not every pack is focused on a film or a TV show. One expansion is simply called the Trooper Pack, and it adds a few niche varieties of Imperial stormtroopers to The Skywalker Saga's library: the Death Trooper, Incinerator Trooper, Imperial Shore Trooper, Range Trooper, and Mimban Stormtrooper. LEGO Star Wars often features many clone trooper and stormtrooper variants, but the Trooper Pack seems like an odd addition to The Skywalker Saga because of the media Traveller's Tales could have drawn from instead.
Why The DLC Trooper Pack Stands Out
The Trooper Pack feels a little out of place among The Skywalker Saga's DLC expansions because there are a few important Star Wars shows that probably should have occupied that slot. For instance, neither Star Wars: The Clone Wars nor Star Wars: Rebels appear, even though both animated shows have had a major impact on Star Wars canon in recent years. They're each littered with important characters that seem like potential DLC additions, from Ezra Bridger to Cad Bane.
The stormtrooper-heavy pack is also strange because many of the Trooper Pack's members will probably play similarly. Even though these stormtrooper variants have distinct aesthetics due to their various roles within the Galactic Empire, many of them are still just stormtroopers. Death Troopers might wield heavy weapons and explosives in The Skywalker Saga, while Incinerator Troopers will probably carry their signature flamethrowers, but the other DLC troopers have significantly less unique training to distinguish themselves. The Trooper Pack might turn out to be pretty bland compared to The Skywalker Saga's other expansions.
The Skywalker Saga's DLC Potential
As a definitive manifestation of the Star Wars series, The Skywalker Saga really seemed like the perfect place to add representatives of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Rebels, and other stories that didn't make it into the base game. The Trooper Pack's stormtroopers might be interesting to play, but as long as they take up space that a Star Wars show could have occupied, they feel out of place. The Skywalker Saga probably has its fair share of stormtrooper variants anyway, so it's hard to say if the Trooper Pack is necessary.
Hopefully Traveller's Tales has at least conjured up some unique mechanics for each of the Trooper Pack's members to better justify their appearance in the place of another Star Wars TV show. Ideally, the Trooper Pack won't prevent other Star Wars media from appearing in The Skywalker Saga at all. Traveller's Tales could very well come back to The Skywalker Saga in a few months with more paid expansions that bring missing Star Wars stories into the game. For now though, fans will just have to wait and see what kind of long-term support The Skywalker Saga might get.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga releases April 5, 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
