The Acolyte: How the series was inspired by Star Wars games

With the third and final season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch and the miniseries Tales of the Empire now firmly in the rearview mirror, the Star Wars franchise is revving up for yet another new addition. The first live-action series in some time, Star Wars: The Acolyte aims to take viewers back in time. Long before the Empire, long before the Clone Wars, there was the Jedi Order, the Republic, and a mysterious, powerful force seeking to destroy them both.

The Acolyte takes audiences a century ahead of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace as a group of Jedi attempt to sort out a criminal conspiracy. Jedi are being killed left and right and no one knows who is responsible. This intriguing tale comes from series creator and showrunner Leslye Headland, who’s no stranger to the Star Wars galaxy.

In fact, Headland herself shared that her love of Star Wars helped her create The Acolyte. More specifically, her love and knowledge of Star Wars RPGs and the Expanded Universe influenced her creative direction. “I was coming at it as a fan who was much more into the RPG that the Extended Universe feeds on,” Headland said in an interview with Vanity Fair.

Continuing, Headland mentioned that Star Wars RPGs went a long way in helping her creativity come out as a kid. She didn’t feel the need to adhere strictly to what the films had to offer narratively, instead making her own fun in George Lucas’ massive sandbox. She brought that mentality to The Acolyte, affording her the chance to push the boundaries of Star Wars itself.

“I was able to escape into that world with my friends, to pretend that I was part of that world. It was not like, ‘And now you have to do a scene from the original movie,’” she added, noting that, in her mind, there’s far more to Star Wars storytelling than strictly rehashing the core story elements, character arcs, and the like of the now-nine movie-long Skywalker saga.

Though Headland didn’t name any specific Star Wars games in her Vanity Fair interview, she did indirectly mention one game that helped lay the foundation of her Acolyte vision elsewhere. She told Den of Geek, “Darth Traya really stuck out to me as an inspiration.” Traya (Sara Kestelman), formerly the Jedi Kreia, is a major player in the 2004 hit RPG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords.

Thankfully, fans don’t have to wait too long to see where specifically Headland’s enduring love for Star Wars RPGs manifests in her show. The Acolyte premieres on June 4 exclusively on Disney+.