New Lego Star Wars Game Will Explain C-3PO’s Arm, What Happened to Han Solo’s Crew

The new Star Wars expanded universe is about to drop some knowledge in an unexpected place. When TT Games' Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens arrives this summer, not only will you be able to relive the memorable moments from the sequel 30 years in the making, you'll also get to play through sequences that take place prior to the movie for the very first time. While video games helping to expand on the Star Wars universe is nothing new, most of those experiences (Dark Forces, Shadows of the Empire, Knights of the Old Republic) were wholesale adventures and not just side-missions in a larger game.

It is a little bit shocking to learn that this expanded content will appear in a game aimed at kids, particularly given how not so seriously the Lego video games take their inspiration. That said, there's so much new material to mine with Disney and Lucasfilm wiping the previous expanded universe slate clean, and so much desire for new Star Wars details, injecting it in some unlikely places does add another element of excitement in discovery. In an interview with Game Informer, members of TT Games' development teamed dished on just how and where these additional story missions will take place in the grander scheme.

TT Games played the reveal fairly close to the vest in the interview, not wanting to spill all the details about this new story content. The biggest bit the team was willing to talk about was learning the story behind C-3PO's red arm. While we already know that story will be told this spring in comic book form, reading and playing it are two very different things.

Additionally, Han Solo's and Chewbacca's adventures before they meet up with Rey and Finn were largely left up to the imaginations of fans after seeing the film. How did the smugglers manage to get the three Rathtars aboard the Eravana? What happened to the missing crew Han claimed he and Chewie were working with before finding the Millennium Falcon again? Answers to those questions are on tap to be answered too, with a special section devoted to detailing the Rathtar hunt.

"I can remember the first day on the project and we said that we'd be doing those sort of levels and content, and I couldn't believe that we were going to get to make our own content that was going to be part of the Star Wars universe," game director Jamie Eden said. "We tell the story through the sort of Lego viewpoint as well, so the crux of the story is what happens is true to the IP, obviously we put gags in with characters holding sausages or riding around on pigs, et cetera."

Given how violently the Rathtars seemingly dispose of their prey, it's good to see TT Games is keeping things PG by injecting some of that trademark humor. It's a little bit weird that such a dangerous mission will be handled like a Three Stooges episode, but the Lego games have always found a way to make even the most dire of situations a little humorous.

These two missions will be joined by four others, which will be sprinkled in throughout the core story that follows more closely with the plot of the film. It's unlikely we'll get answers to the truth behind Rey's lineage or even Maz Kanata's connection to the Skywalker lightsaber, but it will be interesting to see what the other story missions show. Perhaps we'll finally find out why Constable Zuvio was worthy of his own action figure, or even see a little bit of the Battle of Jakku in Lego form. There's also the matter of that screenshot that looks like it's from Return of the Jedi. What additional mission could take place on Endor?

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be available on June 28 for just about every platform.

Check Out Some Great Star Wars: The Force Awakens Fan Art