You infiltrated an Imperial base disguised as a stormtrooper. You stole secret data. You encountered…someone. He seemed unstoppable. You somehow escaped without a trace.
Or so you thought.
Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, the full-sensory hyper-reality experience from ILMxLAB and The VOID that sends you on an undercover rebel mission to Mustafar, gets a clever new addition starting today. Upon completing Secrets of the Empire, you’ll now receive an email from the Empire that directs to a hidden page on TheVOID.com. There you’ll find your own personal “Wanted” poster featuring a security photo from the mission, details of your crimes, and the bounty on your head.
So much for getting away without a trace. But for any proud rebel, this is akin to a diploma suitable for framing.
Here’s the even cooler thing — the crimes listed are actually achievements, and the more you earn, the more you’re worth to the Empire. So both in Star Wars and in our own galaxy, you’ll know how well you really did.
To celebrate this update, StarWars.com caught up with Matt Martin of the Lucasfilm Story Group to discuss the creation of these “Wanted” posters, from working with the wizards at ILMxLAB and The VOID to developing the Empire’s in-universe response to such a daring rebel act.
An email from the Empire…
StarWars.com: I love the idea of these “Wanted” posters — they’re a fun bonus to the Secrets of the Empire experience, but they also add some depth from an in-universe perspective. How did you and the Story Group collaborate with the makers of Secrets of the Empire to create these?
Matt Martin: ILMxLAB originally pitched the idea to The VOID team and the project really took off. The VOID worked on some initial proof of concepts and, from there, it was a matter of thinking through some of the in-fiction details for writing and overall graphic design with the teams at Lucasfilm. We had a list of all the achievements that could be earned so we, along with the ILMxLAB team, had to look at those and try to make them sound as Star Wars-y as possible — which is always fun!
…that leads to your own “Wanted” poster.
StarWars.com: How did you figure out what an Imperial “Wanted” poster might look like, or what the Empire would deem crimes? Did you look at similar content in something like Star Wars Rebels, which is also set during the reign of the Empire, did you start from scratch, or did you do other research?
Matt Martin: The Rebels design was definitely the go-to inspiration as it’s the most well-established, but we wanted this to feel unique so we didn’t replicate it one-to-one. What’s interesting about the Rebels execution is that it was designed as a marketing piece before making its way into the show itself, so we already knew what the English language version looked like. We used that established in-universe style and gave it to Eric Tobiason, ILM Art Department art director, and he ran with it. Eric was able to create six unique stormtrooper poses that are based on your in-experience avatar selection, and really the whole Empire aesthetic on the “Wanted” posters. Once his creative execution came back, there were only minor tweaks to get it to the final version that The VOID team worked hard on to implement for guests.
StarWars.com: What’s your single favorite aspect of these posters, and why?
Matt Martin: It might actually be the trooper image itself. In the experience, you choose a color for your trooper and that color shows up on your shoulder pauldron — that way you know who’s who. The “Wanted” poster takes your choice into account, so if you chose, say, a blue pauldron trooper, you’ll have an image of the blue trooper on your poster.
StarWars.com: The fact that the bounty on your head is, essentially, your score, is such a smart twist.
Matt Martin: Yeah, I love that. And it makes sense. Secrets of the Empire takes place before the official Rebel Alliance has been formed, so the Empire isn’t as used to dealing with this sort of insurgency. They don’t have as much infrastructure set up to track down these troublemakers, so they just throw money at it. And the more damage you cause, the more upset they get, and the more money they’re willing to spend to track you down. The Empire isn’t exactly hurting for funding.
Tickets for Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire are on sale now.
Dan Brooks is Lucasfilm’s senior content strategist of online, the editor of StarWars.com, and a writer. He loves Star Wars, ELO, and the New York Rangers, Jets, and Yankees. Follow him on Twitter @dan_brooks where he rants about all these things.
