Star Wars Unlimited had its first set release in March 2024, and spoiler season for set two, Shadows of the Galaxy, is in full swing. But chatting to game designer John Leo at UK Games Expo over the weekend, he revealed that Fantasy Flight Games is planning a long, long way ahead: designs are already well underway for set nine.
“I’m one of the leads on set seven, and that set’s fully designed,” Leo says. “We’re just balancing now.”
“Set nine is in active development. Year three is deep, deep in the planning phase or the design phase. Pitches start for year four this summer.”
The fact that Fantasy Flight is working so far ahead of schedule seems a sign of the company’s confidence in Star Wars Unlimited. “The commitment to the game is total,” Leo says, adding that the developer is determined to make the fledgling TCG a success.
“We don’t want to leave things to chance, we want to be working ahead of our deadlines, we want to be making sure that there aren’t issues going forward,” he adds.
Planning multiple sets simultaneously this far in advance should also allow Star Wars Unlimited to have designs from one set complement a future one.
Leo confirms this: “I was the co-lead on set five as well as set seven. So, working on set five, I already knew what we were gonna be doing for set seven, and we were able to seed some ideas that would pay off later down the line.”
With themes as broad as Empire vs Rebels (set one) and the galaxy’s criminal underworld (set two), we wondered if Fantasy Flight had any concerns about running out of content.
Absolutely not, is Leo’s reply. Partly that’s because FFG isn’t afraid to create new versions of previously covered characters – depicting them in a particular role or scene. And partly it’s because there’s a wealth of content to cover, and Star Wars Unlimited plans to comb “every corner of the galaxy”.
“There’s so many characters introduced in set two,” but there are so many more that we wish we could put in. I’m ready to go back and do another underworld set already, if I can,” Leo says.
Last time we spoke to Star Wars Unlimited designers, we asked if Legends content, previously known as the Expanded Universe, would be in the game, and they didn’t rule it out. We press Leo further on this.
He says: “The Legends material is so rich, and it’s so beloved by such a segment of the community. I would say that we’re tuned in to that, and we’re tuned into the desire for that to be in the game.”
For more tabletop content, check out the best Star Wars board games, and our top card games for adults.