In its prime, LucasArts was untouchable. As both developer and publisher, the studio had an incredible track record—from classic point-and-click adventures like Full Throttle and The Secret of Monkey Island, to some of the best Star Wars games ever made. Knights of the Old Republic, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight 2, and the original Battlefront all fell under the LucasArts banner. When it outsourced a project to another studio, its choice of developer was always perfect.

In 2012, Disney spent $4 billion on Star Wars and killed LucasArts a year later. It was the end of an era—and the beginning of an ill-advised exclusivity deal with Electronic Arts. Giving Star Wars to such a mainstream, corporate, risk averse publisher was a terrible idea, and resulted in a period of mostly boring, unimaginative Star Wars games. In eight years, EA didn't do a single interesting thing with the licence, and the deal's imminent expiration is nothing but good news.

Related: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Spawned Some Great (And Some Truly Terrible) Video Games

LucasArts greenlit plenty of bad Star Wars games—but a lot of creative and surprising ones too. There was DroidWorks, a physics-based puzzle game where you could build your own custom droids. The Gungan Frontier, an ecology simulator that saw you seeding life on Naboo's moon and creating a balanced ecosystem. Masters of Teräs Käsi, a 3D beat-'em-up with an all-star cast of Star Wars characters. Episode I Racer, a superb racing game based on The Phantom Menace's podrace scene.

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That's just a handful of the weird and wonderful Star Wars games LucasArts released over the decades. Not all of them were great, but there was variety. These games took us to different, unseen corners of George Lucas' galaxy far, far away, and gave us new ways to interact with it. They also played fast and loose with the canon, letting you beat up Vader as Han Solo in Masters of Teräs Käsi, or create your own wild what-if Star Wars stories in strategy game Star Wars: Rebellion.

Now look at what EA did. We got two Battlefronts, which although wonderfully presented, were unremarkable, shallow multiplayer shooters. There was Galaxy of Heroes, a microtransaction-stuffed mobile game that squeezed a ridiculous $1.2 billion out of its players. Fallen Order, a good if unambitious action game that riffed on Dark Souls and Uncharted, but had few original ideas of its own. Then, finally, Squadrons, a solid but derivative and desperately light on content space combat sim.

Galaxy of Heroes aside, none of these games are egregiously bad. The presentation and atmosphere are always top notch, capturing the very particular feel of a Star Wars movie. From Squadrons' functional, lovingly rendered cockpits, to Battlefront's authentic depictions of iconic locations such as Hoth and Endor, EA always nails the little details. When you play one of these games, you feel like you're in Star Wars—which is almost enough to overlook their chronic lack of ambition.

What makes EA's Star Wars games ultimately uninteresting, as playable as they are, is how they're all responses to things people already like. Fallen Order exists because people love Soulslikes and cinematic third-person action games. Squadrons exists because people have nostalgia for X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. Battlefront exists because of the popularity of squad-based multiplayer shooters. They're games created to fill a niche, which is very rarely the basis of something unique or memorable.

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This week Lucasfilm Games (ostensibly a resurrected LucasArts) announced it was working on three more Star Wars games with EA and Respawn: a Fallen Order sequel, an FPS, and a strategy game co-developed with Bit Reactor, a studio made up of former Civilization and XCOM devs. However, according to an industry insider, this may be the end of EA's relationship with Lucasfilm. The company is reportedly shifting focus to its own IPs, which means no more Star Wars games.

If this is true, we could see a return to the glory days of Star Wars video games—when they were created by a variety of studios bringing their own distinctive ideas to the table, not designed by committee. But that's all down to Lucasfilm Games and whether it has the same adventurous, experimental spirit as LucasArts in its heyday. The Star Wars universe is rich with possibilities for interesting games, and with play-it-safe EA out of the picture, we might finally see them realised.

As for the immediate future of Star Wars video games, Lucasfilm has already greenlit a few projects—and it's a mixed bag. Ubisoft Massive is making an open world game, which could be interesting if it's not just The Division with lightsabers. Quantic Dream is developing a game set in the High Republic era, titled Star Wars Eclipse, which I'd be more excited about if David Cage's studio didn't have a reputation for writing terrible stories and allegedly fostering a toxic workplace culture.

There's also Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga by TT Games (another studio recently accused of treating employees poorly) and a remake of Knights of the Old Republic by Aspyr Media. So nothing that exciting, but it's early days yet. Reservations aside, it's just good to see new Star Wars games being made outside of EA—and if Disney is smart, it'll let smaller indie devs take a stab at the series too. Star Wars should be for everyone, not just big studios with millions in the bank.

Next: I'm Still Annoyed More People Didn't Play Pillars Of Eternity 2, Because It's One Of The Best RPGs Ever Made