Production Diary: Taking a Breather for Celebration

The time it takes to make a game -- from concept all the way to getting it out the door and into your hands -- is often a long journey that can take years. Sure, we on the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed team do keep things in perspective (we are making a game, after all), but sometimes the daily grind makes it difficult to see the bigger picture. In other words, it's not too often that we get to present to an enthusiastic audience and talk about what we're doing. But every now and again we get an opportunity to see and talk to fans of Star Wars, and at Celebration IV that opportunity was golden.

Having been a fan of Star Wars since 1977, I couldn't have imagined a better place and time to finally "unleash" information about Star Wars: The Force Unleashed to the public first-hand -- 30 years to the day that A New Hope was released. For the last few months I have been able to share a few details through these Production Diaries, and coverage in magazines and on web sites is beginning to kick into gear (it's amazing how many sites -- fan and otherwise -- are starting to crop up), but it wasn't until CIV that members from the team, including Project Lead Haden Blackman, Art Director Matt Omernick, and yours truly, were able to sit in front of an audience that was 1,000-people strong at two separate panels and talk about what we are doing. Additionally, it was the first time that we revealed who some of our actors in the game are: Sam Witwer as Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice, Nathalie Cox as badass pilot and love interest Juno Eclipse, and Adrienne Wilkinson as the mysterious dark Jedi Maris Brood.

You might be wondering how Celebration IV fits into the balance of the overall production of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, or maybe how the experience is worthy of a diary entry? As mentioned above it was our chance to view first-hand the excitement that the team is generating through the creation of this game, and more importantly it was our first chance to talk to some of you at the show. Because the team lives with the game day in and day out we sometimes get mired down in the details and forget to enjoy the work that we're doing, and to see the enthusiasm of the young and old alike was inspiring to us. We wanted to say thank you to those who were able to attend Celebration IV and take part in one of the first Star Wars: The Force Unleashed fan experiences. As we move ahead with production there will be many other opportunities to have this kind of interaction with you, and at every stage we will be bringing you more and more information that will hopefully continue to pique your interest. Be sure to come back next time as I begin a series of entries that discusses LucasArts' collaboration with Industrial Light & Magic.

And if you wanted to more about The Force Unleashed at CIV, be sure to check out the official StarWars.com Blog.