Well, it didn't take long for mobile games to become every bit as high-stakes as the console games they're replacing. Publisher Kabam said today that it's planning a Star Wars role-playing game for mobile platforms that, from all appearances, is fairly huge in its scope.

Star Wars Uprising, slated for a beta release in a few weeks, is created by Kabam's "RPG Studio" in San Francisco, which boasts among its staff members Daniel Erickson, the former creative director of Electronic Arts' Star Wars MMO The Old Republic. Heading up animation is Danny Keller, who directed several episodes of the Clone Wars animated series.

"We have people from Blizzard, Lucasfilm... we have assembled a true, in the traditional sense, RPG studio," Kabam general manager Tim Ernst told WIRED in advance of the announcement.

"It is a true RPG," said Kabam senior vice president Aaron Loeb. "It is really about building your Star Wars fantasy, of being the character you most want to be in that universe." Players will create their own characters at the game's outset, Loeb said, noting that just as Princess Leia might be described in turns as a noble, a spy, or a general, you too can be a "hybrid" of different character classes.

Star Wars fans might appreciate the uniqueness of the storyline—the game will be set immediately following the fall of Emperor Palpatine at the end of Return of the Jedi, but in a remote part of the galaxy that hasn't quite gotten the memo; the game's antagonist is "pretending that the Emperor is still alive, and using this lie to keep the Empire under his thumb," said Loeb.

Kabam

"Dungeon crawler" is how Loeb describes the game's mechanics—you'll explore discrete game levels, killing enemies with "gesture-based" action and finding increasingly powerful gear. This is where the free-to-play game's monetization angle lies, Kabam says; you won't have to pay for more "energy" to keep playing, but if you want to get better gear without having to grind it out, you can get it with cash.

As time passes, players will be able to team up and participate in "large-scale battles" that unlock more and more of the game's storyline for all players. "All players are members of this uprising," says Ernst, "and we're the Empire."

Like many mobile games today, Uprising will probably be released for wide-scale beta testing in some smaller markets, before a big official release in the U.S. and other worldwide app stores later on down the line.