A tongue-in-cheek conversation between two developers on LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga gives a small glimpse into the development of content based around The Rise of Skywalker.
First, another key detail to know is that TT Games was unaware of any Rise of Skywalker content prior to the movie’s release in December 2019. The time beforehand was spent working on the rest of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, but anything for Rise of Skywalker likely did not start until after then.
In a farewell-style post from Jack Chapman, who recently left TT Games for Sumo Digital, he and fellow dev Ryan Roper briefly discussed working on episode 9 content. Roper comments that it was a pleasure working with Chapman and that he couldn’t wait for everyone to see the work Chapman did on LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. In response, Chapman jokes that he had “PTSD” from working on Episode 9 content, with Roper also saying that doing so was the “most fun [he’s] had and the most miserable [he’s] been.”
Was a pleasure working with you on LEGO Star Wars. Can’t wait for everyone to see the great work you did on the game. You’ll smash it at your new place. Beers soon!
— Ryan Roper (@RJ_Roper) July 12, 2021
The exact “why” wasn’t mentioned, and it could be for any number of reasons. The aforementioned timeframe for content makes sense, especially when the work on the final movie couldn’t happen any sooner. Not to mention, it was around March 2020 when many parts of the world began shutting down due to the pandemic, likely complicating development on LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga’s Rise of Skywalker content.
We still do not have a release date for LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and it may yet slip to 2022 as releases for this year’s holiday season have mostly been announced.
