Star Wars: Force Arena is the latest Star Wars game to release, taking the franchise into MOBA territories on mobile devices. Production director at developer Netmarble Monster, Hong Seo Park, answered some questions about Star Wars: Force Arena, what it’s like to make something new in the Star Wars universe, and if he plays Light side or Dark side more in matches.
Park mentioned the reason Netmarble Monster had the opportunity to make a Star Wars game was because of the success of another Disney game, Marvel Future Fight. “With the development and service of Marvel Future Fight, Netmarble Monster has proved itself to be competitive enough to develop this game and also have full understanding of the IP,” Park told iDigitalTimes. “I’m very happy to have been given such opportunity.”
The idea for Star Wars: Force Arena is to blend Star Wars with MOBAs, all while making it easy to play on a phone or tablet. “It was really hard to present Star Wars in a satisfying way,” Park said. The problem was finding a way to make everything that is iconic about Star Wars still work and be fun. “We wanted to include all favorite characters and villains including Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, special character relationships such as Han Solo and Chewbacca, and iconic units including the X-Wing into Force Arena’s battleground and give it the right Star Wars universe experience.”
Even though Force Arena only released in January, many players have already hit the max level available right now. This shouldn’t be a concern for much longer, as Netmarble Monster has plans to update the existing content and continue to roll new content out as well.
“We still have characters that we haven’t been able to introduce, and some of the characters that players want will continue to be updated. We are also planning a new update that features a larger universe than what players see in the 1v1 and 2v2 battles currently available within the game,” Park said of the new content coming. There will also be balancing tweaks coming “as early as every two weeks.”
“For major updates, we are looking at introducing new content every month, but there may be minor changes to schedule,” said Park.”
Park was excited about getting the opportunity to work on a Star Wars game, but was also nervous at the same time.
“Since Star Wars has one of the largest number of fans around the world, we felt there were millions of different versions of what Star Wars should look like in the minds of the fans,” he said. “And since our game was developed in the MOBA genre, we had various different things to consider. Although we might not be able to show everything about Star Wars , we wanted people to feel that this is ‘pure Star Wars’ when they played Star Wars: Force Arena.”
Finally, Park personally finds himself going back and forth between the Light and the Dark often when playing Force Arena, saying it depends on how he’s feeling at the time.
“Surprisingly, the play rate of each side has been almost dead even,” he said. “On the Light side, I usually play Lando Calrissian who I can play more strategically, and on the Dark side, I usually play Emperor Palpatine who has a strong set of skills.”
“You know what? The “balance of the force” is important,” he said.
Star Wars: Force Arena is now available to download for iOS and Android devices.
So what do you think? Are you interested in trying out Force Arena for yourself? What other interesting game genres would you like to see get a Star Wars game? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
