Final Fantasy 10 is remembered for many things. Yuna dancing on the water. Her blossoming romance with Tidus. That laughing scene. Then there was the quite extensive mini-game of Blitzball, an invented sport that was like ice hockey and football but played underwater. Apparently, this Square Enix-imagined sport is now also a canonical sport in the Star Wars universe.
The author of the novel Star Wars: Brotherhood took to Twitter a couple weeks ago to pick out some smaller details in the book, which chronicles the exploits of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi during their days in the Clone Wars. In his thread, Chen revealed that Blitzball is mentioned in the novel.
Chen says the Star Wars novel references Blitzball, which is played in a local lake, and that as he himself was once an NHL writer he'd loved Blitzball in Final Fantasy 10 and spent hours winning leagues in it.
Star Wars: Brotherhood is an official canonical novel that was published recently by Penguin. "Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker must stem the tide of the raging Clone Wars and forge a new bond as Jedi Knights", the book's description reads on Amazon. "Once a Padawan to Obi-Wan, Anakin now finds himself on equal—but uncertain—footing with the man who raised him...To overcome the threat they face they must grow beyond master and apprentice. They must stand together as brothers."
But Blitzball is not the only video game reference in Chen's novel. Respawn Entertainment's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order also gets a nod as there is a "blink and you miss it" moment in the novel that features Jaro Tapal and a red-haired youngling. Yep. That would be Fallen Order's Cal Kestis, who will be returning in the sequel that's subtitled Survivor. There are rumours that events and characters from the recent Obi-Wan Disney Plus series and the game may influence each other, so it's nice to see the different media tying together.
But as for Blitzball, well perhaps Tidus is playing in a lake on a world in a galaxy far far away...