Games based on "the galaxy far, far away" will no longer be exclusive to EA. As of this date, the exclusive agreement between Lucasfilm and the Walt Disney Company with Electronic Arts Inc. has ended. Coinciding with this epic development, Lucasfilm has brought back Lucasfilm Games as the in-house division that will handle video game licensing and development for its IPs. This marks the end of a long period since May 2013 that EA had been the sole developer and publisher of all Star Wars games.
LucasFilm Games to LucasArts Games
In 1982, LucasFilm Games was established by George Lucas himself. It was intended as a department under the larger Lucasfilm Group to serve as the arm for video games development. Interestingly, the first games developed by the LucasFilm Games arm would not be Star Wars related. This was because the rights and development license was given to Atari.
However, having their biggest intellectual property out of their hands may have been a blessing in disguise. As stated by Ron Gilbert, one of the earliest LucasFilm Games employees, if they had the Star Wars license and property to work on, they might not have developed new properties. Thanks to the absence of the Star Wars brand, LucasFilm Games would develop such classics as Ballblazer, Koronis Rift, Habitat (one of the first online roleplaying games), Labyrinth, Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, Curse of Monkey Island, and Full Throttle.
LucasFilm Games would be re-branded as LucasArts in the early 1990s, as LucasFilm reorganized. LucasArts would become the specific games division under LucasArts Entertainment Company, as other divisions like Industrial Light & Magic (aka ILM) and Skywalker Sound were established. It would be under the LucasArts name that the Star Wars IP would finally come home, so to speak.