Here’s my first intervention in this threat. I’m pretty sure that there must be like a thousand list of wishful thinking on what FFG is preparing for the future of this line, and the relevance of playing Jedis in this future. Well, here’s mine along with my humble opinion, in comparison of the business plan we’ve seen in the 40K line.
The first games we saw in 40K were Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader. But everybody was asking for the most iconic figures in this universe as PCs: Space Marines. Then came Death Watch and Black Crusade (the bad guys!). Finally we have Only War. All of them with a plethora of expansions and adventures that expanded their little corner of that license.
So back to Star Wars. I have the feeling that instead of having the 40K “styles of play” or “races” as core books, what we will see is “eras of play”. The Edge of the Empire is conveniently low in midiclorians, which gives everyone the chance to get grips with the system in a confy and recognizable era of play that everyone actually likes. My guess is that we will see expansions on daring adventurers, spaceships and droids. Also some adventures that deal with the outer skirts of the Empire, but not going too deeply into the Skywalker saga.
I’m digging the game as it is right now, but this is not my favorite game setting in Star Wars. My bet is that the next Core game will be set in the Clone Wars era, which has three cannon movies to back it up. We’ve seen Disney dismissing all the Expanded universe and videogames, so I wouldn’t expect anything in the Knights of the Old Republic or the future New Jedi Order… or at least until Abrams starts working on those future films properly.
I think that the Clone Wars era is much more interesting in terms of writing adventures (IMHO). You’ve got a much wider array of opponents (The Separatists, The Trade federation, the Sith minions, along with all the mafia types that you can throw in during the Rebellion Era), a wider battle background, and Jedis as a key element of the evolution of the storyline. That is, Jedi playing characters (like the 40K Space Marines). We will see expansion books related to the Force (Jedi & Sith) or mass battles with great armies, along with adventures with heavy military or political background. The downside of it is that the films are not seen as being as awesome as the original and, and carry along a huge load of fan grudge.
My ideal gaming era is the Rise of the Empire, between the birth of the Skywalker Children until the Battle of Yavin, which was covered in the Force Unleashed videogames. It has the best of both worlds: the final ripples of the Clone Wars, Vader chasing rogue Jedis that escaped the Order 66, Imperial forces emerging, non-human races pushed away from the core systems, Moffs taking over local governments, underworld wise guys, etcetera. Also the good thing is that you don’t have to be in the shadow of any awesome character that everyone knows, and you can really make an impression on the evolution of the Galaxy. In any case, I won’t hold my breath until this book gets released, for the same reasons I described before with Disney’s plans of ignoring the Expanded Universe.
These are my two cents. Do you think that any of this makes any sense?