Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 Arrives on October 26

In a rather surprising move, LucasArts has announced on its Facebook page that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 will be launched on October 26 of this year. The videogame has no confirmed launch platforms at the moment but players can expect to see it arrive on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 from Sony, the Nintendo Wii, with significantly different versions also arriving on the PlayStation Portable and on the Nintendo DS. A PC version is possible but a few months following the initial launch date.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 was officially announced during December of 2009 with a trailer at the Video Game Awards hosted by Spike TV. It confirmed that the main character of the sequel would be Starkiller, the Darth Vader apprentice players controlled in the first videogame, which bridged the gap between Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Star Wars is still a huge franchise, despite the fact that no new feature films will be launched linked to it. LucasArts still has the space between the two series to fill with videogame adventures and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 could be one of the hits of the fall as long as the developers manage to refine the lightsaber mechanics and add more of a role playing element to the adventures of Starkiller.

The developers also need to make sure that they create a story offering something new for fans of the series while not keeping out more casual players.

The launch date also raises the possibility of The Force Unleashed 2 working with the two new motion tracking systems set to be launched in the fall, Project Natal from Microsoft and the PlayStation Move from Sony. Lightsaber combat is uniquely suited to work with motion tracking.