Ubisoft and Lucasfilm Games (the new name for the gaming wing of Lucasfilm) have announced they're working together on a major new Star Wars game, an open-world adventure that will take its place in what Disney is calling a new era for its gaming properties.

It's big news for Star Wars fans, who have spent the last eight years getting relatively thin gruel from EA's exclusive arrangement with Star Wars as far as console gaming was concerned - a partnership that only really started to bear fruit with its last couple of outings, Star Wars Squadrons and Jedi: Fallen Order. 

Ubisoft's open-world formula should be a pretty significant shift for the franchise, though - while Fallen Order had some hub-world elements, it'll be refreshing to get a true open world in the Star Wars universe. 

Whether it involves climbing towers to light up the map with new icons to complete, in true Ubisoft style, will remain to be seen, and there are so far no more details about when the game will be set, what sort of story content it'll deal with, or what gameplay it'll feature. 

The project will be led by Massive Entertainment, a Swedish studio under Ubisoft's banner, and will apparently run on the Snowdrop engine, which powered The Division 2, for example. Yves Guillemot, co-founder and CEO of Ubisoft, called it "the beginning of a long-term collaboration with Disney and Lucasfilm Games", so don't bet against more Star Wars games from Ubisoft down the line. 

What all this means for EA's ongoing Star Wars involvement isn't too clear - we're expecting a sequel to Jedi: Fallen Order at some point based on its reception, and a Tweet from EA suggests that there's still plenty more to come from it:

The announcement comes hot on the heels of Lucasfilm Games confirming that Bethesda is working on a new Indiana Jones game, too, so there are clearly some pretty significant cogs in motion over at Disney.