Developers, industry luminaries ruminate on the Star Wars games they'd like to make and play

The Star Wars fiction is expansive and colorful enough to support all kinds of video games, and industry luminaries have very different ideas of the kinds of Star Wars games they want to make and play, as seen on Wired.

To this point, precious few Star Wars games have attained critical and commercial success, especially in the current console generation. So Wired asked 17 developers and members of the game industry for details on their dream Star Wars game, if they were given full access to the franchise and had unlimited resources.

"I want to play a tower defense game where I'm playing the Death Star," said Journey designer Jenova Chen. "I'm going to defend from those force users directing a missile into my belly. Quantic Dream's David Cage, creative director on Heavy Rain and the upcoming Beyond: Two Souls, would focus less on the combat and more on the rest of the Star Wars universe.

"It's not just about fighting; it's about the destiny of these characters, it's about how they interact, their relationships, it's about all those things," he told Wired. "I would like to translate that into a game, and try to make sure that I convey the complexity of the relationship and the characters as much as I can."

On the other hand, Frank Lantz, director of the NYU Game Center, is tired of Star Wars altogether. "I never want to make, or play, another game or see another movie, cartoon, or lunch box set in that desiccated husk of a universe. That's my dream!"

Head to Wired to check out more thoughts from people like Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman, XCOM: Enemy Unknown lead designer Jake Solomon and Portal designer Kim Swift.