Video games set in a galaxy far, far away are arguably more interesting nowadays than they’ve been for years. But what’s changed? Lucasfilm Games executive Douglas Reilly says the company is now less restrictive with the Star Wars franchise and teases more upcoming games that could surprise fans.

This year alone, we’ve received two pretty surprising Star Wars games. There’s Star Wars: Zero Company, an excellent turn-based tactics game that force pushes the XCOM formula into an entirely different sci-fi world. Then there’s Star Wars: Galactic Racer, an arcade racing game from some of the developers behind Burnout. Both courted rave reviews.

Speaking to The Game Business Show, Reilly says those collaborations came from being “more flexible about, like, who we’re willing to take pitches from and good ideas can come from a lot of different places.”

Disney infamously signed a 10-year deal with EA that granted the publisher exclusive rights to make Star Wars video games. That deal expired in 2023, leaving the door open for smaller studios.

“You don’t have to necessarily be a top five publisher to make a great Star Wars game,” Reilly adds. “We have a high quality bar and we want to make sure they’re excellent experiences and that means typically you work with more experienced teams than, you know, new teams who have no track record of making great things.”

From here, the exec says “we’re exploring all kinds of things [with] large and small partners that I think are going to continue to surprise folks who are like, ‘Oh, they’re doing a thing with them. That might be interesting to see how that turns out.'”

Currently, we know EA’s Respawn is in development on a third game in the Star Wars Jedi franchise. Quantic Dream is still apparently working on Star Wars Eclipse, though that project hit a big hurdle earlier this summer as developers planned to strike.

Upcoming Star Wars games: Every new Star Wars game announced so far