Despite growing up as both a cinephile and a sci-fi nerd, I somehow never caught the Star Wars bug. Sure, I got swept up in the cultural moment of The Phantom Menace like any other kid at the time, but I had no desire whatsoever to see Attack of the Clones just three years later. For me, Star Wars has been little more than a pretty fun trilogy of blockbusters set in an impressively large universe that I just don’t understand.

That has changed in a big way in 2026, and it’s all thanks to video games. At the moment, both Star Wars Zero Company and Star Wars: Galactic Racer are sitting high on my 2026 Game of the Year shortlist. That’s thanks in part to ironclad gameplay systems, but it’s also because, for the first time in a good long while, they have truly shown me the wider potential of the Star Wars universe. For outsiders who have long looked for a way in, there has never been a better time to get into Star Wars.

Reflecting on my history with the series, I believe that my previous disinterest in Star Wars came from the fact that I saw it as a little more than a superhero story. It always struck me as your basic tale of good vs. evil, where the all-powerful do-gooder Jedi take down........

© Polygon