Lucasfilm Games opens Star Wars to indies as Pantaloon launches Playbill

Lucasfilm Games is now more open to independent developers for Star Wars licenses instead of relying on major publishers such as Ubisoft and EA, franchise executive Douglas Reilly said Oct. 19, 2026. Lucasfilm Games tries to be more flexible about who it takes pitches from because good ideas can come from many different places, Reilly said. “Good ideas can come from a lot of different places,” Reilly said. Douglas Reilly said Lucasfilm Games does not target a particular publisher tier but applies a high quality bar and typically works with more experienced teams than new teams.

Lucasfilm Games previously sold single-publisher exclusive rights to Star Wars games, with EA as that publisher, an approach criticized for limiting the number of games and genres and for creating a dearth felt by Star Wars fans. EA previously held exclusive rights to Star Wars games, an approach criticized for limiting the number of games released and the genres chosen.

Two highly-rated Star Wars games released in 2026 were made by independent studios. Zero Company is an XCOM-like Star Wars game, meaning a tactical game similar to the XCOM series, and Galactic Racer is a Burnout-like Star Wars game, meaning an arcade racer similar to the Burnout series; both were released in 2026 by independent studios. Bigger companies such as Ubisoft and EA have typically handled Star Wars games in recent years.

Lucasfilm Games’ new licensing approach creates a broader selection of Star Wars games and leads to more frequent releases. The number of currently announced Star Wars games remains small. Star Wars Eclipse is a long-in-development game by Quantic Dream, the third Respawn Star Wars Jedi game is in the works, Casey Hudson is developing Fate of the Old Republic, and Saber Interactive continues to insist the Knights of the Old Republic Remake remains in development.

Lucasfilm Games is looking at many different projects, both large and small, with partners likely to keep surprising people. Reilly said Lucasfilm Games is exploring all kinds of things, large and small, with partners that may continue to surprise folks who wonder what the company is doing.

Pantaloon launched Playbill, a subscription service for an evolving library of bold and bizarre indie games, on Oct. 22, 2026. The Playbill launches with 14 titles plus Pantaloon’s original games, including Sub-Verge, Occlude, It Takes a War, Boxroom, Offbeat, and Rolla. The full launch lineup also includes Buckshot Roulette, Silt, Ex Sanguis, Death Crown, Kids, Four Last Things, and Cabin Factory.

Devolver’s Virtue: Prologue will be a timed-exclusive on the Playbill at launch, releasing on October 27, 2026. Devolver’s Virtue: Prologue is a visual novella, a story-driven game focused on narrative, tied to the forthcoming Virtue and a Sledgehammer. The Playbill is partly funded by a $150,000 investment announced earlier in 2026.

The full roster of Playbill games is available through a Primo subscription priced at $4.99 or £3.99 monthly, or $49.99 or £39.99 annually. The annual Primo subscription unlocks the entire Playbill collection immediately.

Pantaloon’s newsletter recently reached 50,000 subscribers, and since expanding into publishing in 2025 the company receives 10 to 15 pitches a week. Pantaloon expanded into publishing in 2025 and wants consumer trust similar to Devolver and Annapurna, where players blindly pick up a game because it carries the Pantaloon name. Pantaloon hopes consumers will eventually trust the brand enough to buy its next game sight unseen, expecting a known kind of experience.

Smith wants Pantaloon to achieve brand recognition similar to Devolver and Annapurna. Pantaloon co-founder Jamin Smith said the Playbill goes beyond games to provide curation, conversation, and playful systems that connect everything. Smith cited the Criterion Collection as a regular inspiration and said the Playbill shares a sense of being part of an inner circle of like-minded connoisseurs passionate about the medium and craft.

Smith said Humble, Apple Arcade, and Xbox Game Pass are useful comparisons but are also wildly different because they are almost too big, with a large choice detrimental to surrounding conversation, so Pantaloon keeps its selection lean so its community stays in step. In recent years, a growing number of companies have shifted away from traditional publishing models to focus on indie curation, including Inner Pocket Publishing’s publisher-as-curator model set up over the summer.

Partner titles on the Playbill are offered a simple flat wholesale key purchase, meaning Pantaloon buys game keys at a set price. Pantaloon compensates partners for keys, and when subscribers outnumber keys, a title leaves the service, may return at a higher key threshold, while Pantaloon’s own titles remain indefinitely. Playbill launch playtests include Isle Goblin by Fireshine and Kilowatt Games, Mr Magpie’s Harmless Card Game by Behaviour Interactive, Gambit Digital, and Giant Light Studios, and Lemonade Apocalypse by Pantaloon.

Pantaloon newsletter subscribers can earn game keys by completing puzzles or pay £3.99 a month to get guaranteed access, and anyone can use profile, puzzle, and community features without paying. Smith’s initial focus for Playbill is to reach a 5 percent conversion to Primo subscriptions, then build from there.

Smith described Playbill as one of many risky experiments and acknowledged the subscription model is difficult to succeed with. He said no one has solved the subscription model for indie developers given their budgets and prices. Smith said the Playbill might not work but can scale sustainably with its subscriber base and attempts to solve problems affecting the long-term health and success of studios taking the biggest creative risks.

The Playbill seeks to act as a curated sanctuary away from algorithms, selecting games by different criteria to highlight diverse titles and make discovery easier.