Star Wars: Uprising really leans into George Lucas’ sci-fi World War II philosophies. Developer Kabam’s dungeon-crawling role-playing game is almost ready to launch, but when the team talks about it, the conversation isn’t about a mobile co-op game — it’s about Star Wars politics, the chaos of a galaxy ravaged by an endless war, and the people affected by it.

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"The Uprising has four very distinct factions that never would be together if it weren’t for the Empire," Kabam’s Daniel Erickson told IGN. In fact, they really aren’t terribly together now. I think of the allies in World War II. Russia and America are allies, and are rushing for Germany — but we have very different ideas about what happens five seconds after the war ends."The four-faction Uprising, an extension of the Rebel Alliance who fled Hoth’s Anoat Sector, fights to free the galaxy from the tightening grip of the paranoid I mperial Governor Adelhard . The story of how — or if — Adelhard fails is dictated by Kabam, Lucasfilm’s story group, and the Uprising community."What happens when the Empire is pushed out?" Kabam General Manager Tim Ernst added. "What does the world look like then? These are things we can think about longer term."Uprising "is a communally driven story," that Ernst emphasized "is going to be a living entity. This game isn’t one where we release a patch, add more story content, and then there’s the end. It’s going to be ever-evolving, the community is going to drive it, unlocking new pieces of the story, and direct where the story goes in the future. Where things go, there’s definitely no end, there’s no resolution."Ideally, Ernst explained, "It’s kind of like the end of sequelization. If you can download an update that’s as meaningful as a sequel? Give me the update. I don’t want to download or pay for something else."The Expanded Universe Lucasfilm now neglects from canon is fully up for grabs, though, giving creators — whether you’re Kabam making Uprising or Chuck Wendig writing Star Wars: Aftermath — plenty of additional material to draw from.Erickson said, "I was a huge EU fan for a long time [and] we have been hugely encouraged. What we did is we went back to the EU and grabbed the stuff that didn’t make any sense, but stuff we thought was fantastic. We took it to the core Lucasfilm story team and worked out how to make it into canon, how to give it roots that would feed into what’s coming next."As a story set post-Return of the Jedi , the Uprising establishes a world where The Force Awakens’ Resistance and First Order eventually rise to their respective powers. Erickson doesn’t see Star Wars: Uprising purely as a prequel to The Force Awakens, though."We’re setting up and looking at what’s coming next. After Episode VII, we’ve got Rogue One, which is historical for us. So we’re there along with everyone else. "Look at those Stormtrooper helmets . We can have those, right?"If Uprising continues to grow over time, it can easily ret-con prequel content of any kind — whether it’s George Lucas’ or Gareth Edwards’ films — into Uprising’s "Episode 6.1" era."Think about it as movies," Erickson said. "Chapter One launches next month. There is a text crawl and it is 40 levels. It is a good chunk of stuff. What we’ve done is said the content doesn’t end. Every time new pieces come out, there’s another story missions for every single character level in the game."For more PAX Prime 2015 coverage, check out IGN's PAX Prime hub

Mitch Dyer is an Editor at IGN. Talk to him about Dota 2, movies, books, and other stuff on Twitter at @MitchyD and subscribe to MitchyD on Twitch