Interview: Tim Wileman On Reuniting LEGO Star Wars For The Force Awakens

There’s a seemingly neverending stream of Lego games these days, but there’s something a little bit special about where it all began with Lego Star Wars. With a new film and a rekindled universe, the Lego games get a chance to return to their roots for The Force Awakens, and after hands on time with the game, we spoke to Tim Wileman, Associate Producer at Traveller’s Tales.

TSA: What’s it like returning to Star Wars? Obviously that’s where you guys started with the Lego series.

Tim Wileman: Yeah. It’s awesome, in a nutshell. Myself, the team, everyone’s a massive Lego fan, a massive Star Wars fan, so to get the opportunity to go full circle and work with Lucasfilm again eleven years on. Being able to bring all of our learning since the first game and pour it into this game has been an absolute privilege.

TSA: Has it been tricky to come and work from just a single film? Your first Lego games were built on the trilogies, you’ve have had Indiana Jones and even Jurassic World was all four films in one, despite the name.

Tim: I don’t think it’s been a difficulty at all. I think it’s been an opportunity, if anything. We get the opportunity to spend more time in these locations, focus more on all of the key beats in the film, all the story points that we may ordinarily have had to have left out.

If you’re making a game based on three films, you have to brush over things quite quickly, and this has given us the opportunity to pour over the details more and provide a more authentic experience.

TSA: I guess you also get to even expand on some of these things, especially when you’re re-interpreting certain scenes.

Tim: That’s right, and we’ve been given a certain amount of artistic license on this as well, so you’ve got the opportunity to explore locations in a lot more detail and experience sections that you won’t have seen in the film.

The team have been pouring over the source material, and they’ve really pulled out all of the stops. It looks amazing with some of these locations.

TSA: How have you gone about managing to find 200 characters to feature in the game? Because that was a bullet point in the presentation, and I was a little surprised by that.

Tim: Really?

TSA: Well, I know there are a lot of characters in Star Wars as a whole and the Extended Universe which doesn’t really exists any more. I was just wondering if you had all of the stormtroopers from the drop ship at the start? [laughs]

Tim: [laughs] 91 stormtrooper variants, and then…

No, it wasn’t difficult at all, because as I said, the team are massive fans. So they can pull out all these names and for some of them you’ll go, “Oh yeah, that’s that character,” but some you’ll be like, “Who’s that?”

I think it’s going to appeal to a lot of people and there’s going to be some subtle references for Star Wars fans, and then there’s obviously all the main characters from films I to VII. So we’re covering as many as we can.

We have some stormtroopers, but not the 90 that you think we might have! There’ll be some surprises in there as well.

TSA: Have you got the stormtrooper with the crazy cattle prod thing? I can’t remember what it’s called.

Tim: We have, yeah! But I can’t remember the name of that one now…

TSA: It’s basically just a swivelling cattle prod…

Tim: Yeah, there’s loads of these cool characters, and we’ve also got the character customiser in the game. As you unlock these characters you’ll get the opportunity to go into a special location in the hub, pull them all apart and put them back together again in cool and interesting ways, assign them abilities and weapons, and stuff like that. So there’s lots of cool opportunities there.

TSA: And in terms of telling the story, compared to the originals, you’ve obviously got all of the voice acting in there now. Now, you said you had John Boyega and Daisy Ridley come in to do new voice work, but did you manage to get BB-8?

Tim: Uh, BB-8 couldn’t make it. He was having an oil bath or something at the time, I can’t remember now.

TSA: So that bit has been simulated then…

Tim: We’re actually using his dialogue, but yeah, we’ve had the opportunity to work with all the major talent on this game and they’ve all come back in to record lines. That’s been a fantastic opportunity for us to progress some of their characters a little further than you would have seen in the film, and in terms of the side quests, it’s given us more opportunities to embellish those, so it’s been a thrill all around to work with those guys.

TSA: It is quite interesting that the game’s coming out half a year after the film. Obviously Star Wars is pretty timeless, but do you think that’s an odd gap?

Tim: No, not really. It’s given us the time to really polish the game and add all of these core new features, like the multi-builds, the new flight sections and the blaster battles. Also with the seven new side stories that we’re bringing to the game, it’s given us the opportunity to really pull out all the stops on that as well.

So it’s been the right decision, definitely.

TSA: I guess it’s also a sign of the trust and freedom that Disney and Lucasfilm are giving you.

Tim: Yeah, you know, Disney and Lucasfilm are really fantastic partners to work with. They really understand our games and are fans of our games. Similarly, we understand their sensitivities surrounding their IPs. So it’s really been a great partnership.

TSA: Do you get a little tired of people going, “Oh, it’s another Lego game. Is there anything new?”

Tim: No, because we’ve got lots of cool new things to talk about in this game!

We’re bringing new content and new gameplay opportunities to the game. The multi-builds have given us more scope in terms of how we tackle puzzles, humour and how you go through levels. The flight sections are really cool and let us recreate the dogfights over Takodana and you can take the Falcon through the Jakku chase section and stuff like that.

There’s lots and lots of cool things and I could talk about it all day! [laughs]

TSA: Well, you kind of are for today! [laughs]

Thanks to Tim for taking the time to talk to us about Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Be sure to check out our hands on preview from the game, which is heading for release on June 28th.