Video games have played an important role in expanding the Star Wars universe, most recently with the 2008 hit Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which was hailed for its darker take on the series. In it you play as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, Starkiller, battling against the Jedi with an arsenal of powerful Force abilities. It was the kind of mature Star Wars experience fans had been waiting for, and the intense action and cliffhanger ending left gamers eager for a follow-up – which they’ll get this October when Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II hits consoles.

Developing a sequel to a game that sold over seven million copies is no easy task, but LucasArts has been focused on expanding the story’s scope, while still maintaining the core mechanics that made the original such a success. To get some insight into their creative process, we recently spoke with Full Sail Game Development graduate Ben Retan, a Systems Designer at the studio who has been working to refine the gameplay for The Force Unleashed II.

“I grew up on Star Wars so I’m excited and honored to be a part of this,” he says. “We’re really continuing to turn it up a notch, and push it to those epic proportions that fans want to see – and I want to see too. I want to play as that awesome force-wielding Jedi Knight as much as they do. When I was a kid those were the kinds of dreams that I had, and that’s what I feel like we’re providing.”

Ben explained their emphasis on pushing the engine technology for the second game, including developing dynamic lighting and weather effects, more realistic character physics, and trickier boss battles – the latter of which has been his primary focus. As a Systems Designer he’s worked alongside a team of artists and engineers to concept and produce one of the game’s massive boss encounters. This rigorous design process has him in charge of developing the attack patterns, animations, and interaction with the environments, all while balancing the difficulty to give players a fair challenge.

“Each boss in our game has its own designer, so at the beginning of a game we get a script from our creative director, and it’s up to each of the individual designers to come up with a compelling gameplay experience,” he says. “So I’ll do all the documentation that says all the big beats as you’re progressing through the fight. As all of these things come on line, I can start stitching it together in the game, and then I’ll work with the Lead Designer to tune the experience. It’s really all about coming up with fun gameplay within the fiction of this world.”

Great boss battles can provide some of the most rewarding moments in gaming, and there’s a real art to building an experience that inspires a player to think creatively while keeping up with the action. These sections often work by their own rules, with gameplay that’s completely different for a particular boss than it is for any other enemy you’ll encounter in the game. Ben likened his challenge as a boss designer to building a small sub-game within the main game, and he’s proud of the buzz he’s gotten from his creation – a giant spider-like mechanical robot that you see in the trailer.

“I’m really happy with the way mine came out,” he says. “I feel like the gameplay is really compelling, and very different from the other boss encounters we have. The other ones are more scripted, where this is more about free gameplay, where you can run around and fight in a really fun way. I was really proud to see that in the trailer we had at E3.”

Having your ideas become a part of the official Star Wars canon would be a proud accomplishment for anyone, and Ben is constantly aware of the unique opportunities he’s had while working at LucasArts. Not many people can say they’re helping steer the direction of one of their favorite franchises, and he’s looking forward to poring over the reviews and fan blogs as they dissect the world he and the other designers have dreamed up for The Force Unleashed II.

“I consider myself so lucky to have found myself on a team where we have such amazing artists,” he says. “Working at LucasArts, that’s something they have a history of, really adding that attention to detail. There’s a lot of thought put into the characters and environments. It’s not so much about building a place for you to play, as it is about building a universe and making it believable and beautiful at the same time. It’s just such an inspiring place to work in every day."