Jar Jar confirmed! But not for 2025. — We interview Will Shick, Director of Product Development for Atomic Mass Games on Marvel Crisis Protocol, Shatterpoint, Legion, and the future of the Hobby!

Recently, we had the opportunity to interview Will Shick, the Director of Product Development for Atomic Mass Games, who are responsible for the wildly popular Marvel: Crisis Protocol, Star Wars: Shatterpoint, and Star Wars: Legion, along with the classic, but now discontinued, Star Wars: Armada and Star Wars: X-Wing miniature games. We dove deep, learning about upcoming releases, but also details of the business, such as production, strategic choices, and their outlook on the hobby. Enjoy!

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Firstly, we started with Marvel: Crisis Protocol, which has had a slew of updates and new product releases.

GamingTrend: 

How long is the roadmap for MCP? There are over 150 characters, when are we going to see even more obscure and weird characters from the Marvel Universe, maybe some Howard the Duck and Rom the Space Knight?

Will Shick, Atomic Mass Games:

Just based on the long timeline creating hard plastic miniatures requires, which is right around two years from initial conception to product on the shelf, we have to have a pretty-far-looking roadmap for where the games under our stewardship are going. In practical terms, this means that part of my job is to maintain a five-year projected schedule for each game. While this roadmap isn’t really locked in until we hit the two-year production start and things do shift and change based on current information and thoughts, having a long-term idea of where we want to go helps immensely in us being able to evaluate our work not just against what is currently in the games but what we expect to bring to the games as well.

As to Howard and Rom, we’ve always tried to make sure Crisis Protocol has offered an eclectic mix of characters; for every Spider-Man or Wolverine there’s a Cassandra Nova or a Sin. As many of us are lifelong Marvel fans, we really enjoy being able to use the game as a way to introduce people to some of the more fringe characters found within the Marvel Universe.

GamingTrend: 

Are any iconic battle scenes or comic covers to be made as scenic sets like the Rivals Panels? Secret Wars, Civil War, Days of Future Past, MCU, etc.?

AMG:

We’re always looking for ways to emphasize the uniqueness and coolness of the hobby that makes up so much of our games, and, most importantly, bring that to players of all levels and skills by providing opportunities to maybe do something the average hobbyist might not ever have thought they could do. This was a lot of the inspiration behind our Rivals Panels, which were designed to let players build, paint, and play with scenic dioramas that look just like the ones we see in so many of the great and inspiring painting competitions around the world.

So certainly, I think there’s every desire to continue to offer those kinds of hobby experiences, but we’ve also started to really explore other ways to bring that experience to players that offers a bit more individual choice on how far a hobbyist wants to go. Our recent Marvel Monsters release is a great example of this where the Marvel Monster characters were designed specifically to interact with the massive Tomb of Dracula terrain piece to create a cinematic diorama display if they had both.

GamingTrend: 

What was the business decision to allow the tactics and character cards available to print/download instead of releasing new rules/cards/tokens?

AMG: 

Largely our decision was based around what was best for the game experience and being able to more rapidly respond to the play environment needs in a dynamic way.

There are a number of checkboxes that have to be filled in order to make a physical product for release. You have to be able to offer proper value compared to manufacturing and production costs to the player, there is the whole manufacturing process followed by global shipping, which means that getting products to players as we just discussed isn’t done on a dime. A healthy portion of that two-year timeline I talked about earlier is the actual manufacturing and shipping of the product. And, most importantly, the core of our games aren’t about cards, they are about these incredible hobby miniatures that players spend hours assembling, painting, playing with, and displaying. That’s something we take very seriously, and it means that we are very committed to making sure that the games are as fun and exciting and enjoyable as possible.

Offering them as print and play means we can get the updates to players quickly and in a timely fashion as once we are done with our testing and development we can provide them straight to players, no additional 12+ months of manufacturing and shipping time required, and we ensure players who already invested in the miniatures and games have direct access to them without having to spend more money to get the updates.

Now, in the case of significant rebalances or changes we do produce physical card packs for players that want to have physical printed versions, but, if we’ve determined that the best course for the game is to get the updates out quickly, there will inevitably be a delay as those physical products go through the manufacturing process.

 

After those great reveals, we then asked about their highly-regarded Star Wars skirmish miniature wargame, Shatterpoint.

GamingTrend:

What’s coming to the world of Shatterpoint this year?

AMG:

Shatterpoint has some pretty exciting things on the horizon for this year. We just announced a new Duel Pack “I Am No Jedi,” which will be available as a convention exclusive and recreates Ahsoka and Vader’s confrontation at the climax of Rebels Season 2 in the episode “Twilight of the Apprentice.” These two new versions of Vader and Ahsoka will be released as a standalone character pack a bit later in the year without the terrain display as well.

We do have some new terrain coming out that will support our Star Wars battlefields, and we are continuing to add more alternate missions with our narrative Key Operations game mode, which launched last year at our online studio convention Ministravaganza. Key Operations has been a blast to work on as their asymmetric narrative design really allows us to explore some of the more iconic story beats from various Star Wars media and give players the chance to see how their own Strike Teams would fare in similar situations.

This year will also see the official release of the Galactic Legends game mode, which we had the amazing opportunity to have the Shatterpoint community beta test last year following its announcement at Ministravaganza. Galactic Legends is a multi-player format where two players team up to take on a super-charged “boss” character controlled by a third player. Galactic Legends include characters like Anakin and Asajj Ventress. These versions of the characters are insanely powerful and let us really represent them on the tabletop like we see on screen, as gods among mere mortals. The challenge of taking on a Galactic Legend lets players on both sides really immerse themselves in the narrative of the Star Wars galaxy in a fulfilling way that is uniquely different from the standard 1v1 experience.

And, of course, we have a host of new characters coming from across various eras, with one of the bigger drops being several packs of characters from the movie Rogue One.

GamingTrend: 

With Force Awakens hitting its 10th anniversary in 2025, are there plans to introduce Sequel-trilogy characters into Shatterpoint and Legion?

AMG:

The sequel trilogy is a big part of Star Wars that gave a whole new generation of people their first experience with a galaxy far, far away . . . so it’s certainly something we’ve discussed and, like any questions about X, Y, or Z character, I’m certain that on a long-enough timeline we will see the Rise of the First Order Era explored in the games.

GamingTrend:

What are you most excited to get into the game for the Shatterpoint fans?

AMG:

Oooo, what a question. I feel like Shatterpoint fans are such a broad and diverse group that no matter what I pick I’d be leaving some group of them out. I think overall the thing I’m most excited about is just being able to continue to expand the possibilities of the game and its play experiences. We started that with Key Operations and Galactic Legends last year, but there are so many more things we are working on, including dedicated multiplayer modes, narrative campaign systems, and even larger game sizes. As a 30+ year miniatures hobbyist, the thing I was always most excited about was seeing the value and gameplay possibilities for my collection of miniatures grow and expand. So, it’s something that we’ve always kept core to every game we design and develop. We’re making sure that there is always more beyond just a great standard game experience for players to explore and enjoy with their miniature collection.

Next, we chatted about Star Wars: Legion, which is their large-scale army Star Wars miniature wargame.

GamingTrend:

How do you feel Legion is faring alongside MCP and Shatterpoint?

AMG:

Legion has always been a top-tier game in the miniatures games space. We’ve seen a surge of excitement and engagement with the game since revealing the significant rebalance of the units and missions last year. So, I would say it continues to lead the pack and we are all really excited to see how much it will grow in 2025 as all of the things we’ve been working diligently on for the last three years finally reach store shelves.

GamingTrend:

With the latest Legion overhaul launched, and the production schedule evening out, do you see an increase in player base? Are there plans to increase a new core set or Faction boxes to help get players into the game?

AMG:

While the full road map for the year isn’t quite ready to be announced (I can feel the stern glare of our Marketing Director Ross Thompson burning into me as I speak) what I can say is that AMG is full throttle and pulling out all the stops for Legion this year. While last year’s announcements and reveals at Ministravaganza were big for the game and we felt it very important to provide to the community to ensure the existing player base continued to be energized and excited about the game, this year is very much about taking the Legion community to the next level by bringing in as many new players as possible. It’s a moment that we’ve been pouring a huge amount of our time and effort into over the last three years. So, while I can’t confirm anything specifically, there’s no reason to doubt that we have done everything possible to make 2025 a year of explosive growth.

GamingTrend:

Will we see a Jar Jar?

AMG:

I feel like the impending feeling of Gungans is a great example of the power of the Legion community to create discussion and dreams so strong they start to feel like more than just speculation. Just to set some expectations for the year, 2025 will not become the Year of the Gungan. As we’ve mentioned many times, I certainly think that Gungans are among many of the exciting prospects and places to go as Legion continues to grow and expand into the future. So, will we see a Jar Jar? Sometime in the future of the game, absolutely. But I just want to caution players from taking every mention or ancillary appearance in art as some kind of conspiratorial confirmation that X,Y, or Z is proof positive to happen “now.” We are committed to supporting and developing Legion for the infinite future and we do have fun planting seeds that we hope will someday sprout into exciting new development. When and where those seeds will come to fruition isn’t always right around the corner, so to speak.

GamingTrend:

With the changes to the tournament scene, how has feedback been from players?

AMG:

We’ve been pretty happy with how the changes to the global tournament system have gone thus far, but, like all things, we certainly aren’t done fine-tuning and adjusting based on player feedback. It’s been great being able to get more high-level tournaments to more regions to include more players, and this next season is going to certainly build even more on the foundation started last year. I’m excited to see as the availability of these events continues to grow how that will interact with the influx of new players and community growth that we are working toward this year and how those two things in parallel will combine to continue to build a robust and bigger global Legion community.

And lastly, we asked about AMG’s plans for the hobby side of their games. They’re known for hosting The Path of the Worthy, which is a Marvel: Crisis Protocol painting competition hosted at Adepticon for several years now.

GamingTrend: 

What plans do AMG have to help push the hobby aspect more in the future?

AMG: 

We’ve always worked to help promote and proselytize the miniatures hobby through various means throughout our five years as a studio. Moving into this year with the exciting prospect of Legion bringing in a host of players who may be new to the hobby, our marketing team has been working very closely with our creative director and miniature hobbyist extraordinaire Dallas Kemp on a series of various hobby-related content. Some of that includes expanding and growing our library of ‘How To’ videos, which introduce and teach hobby and painting techniques at all levels. They’ve been working on a large amount of dedicated hobby articles featuring tutorials and teachings from both internal studio folks and the amazing professional miniatures painters and terrain makers we work with to make all the amazing things you see in our photography and product packaging. Our marketing team is working on developing a wealth of partnerships with well-known miniatures content creators to ensure that everyone who has an interest in our games has an abundance of resources to be able to engage in and grow their skills on their personal hobby journey.

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Huge thanks to Will, Rob, and the rest of the team at Atomic Mass Games for their time, answers, and sneak peaks for 2025. Be sure to check back on GamingTrend for more news and details about Atomic Mass Games’s offerings, including upcoming hobby articles about Marvel: Crisis Protocol!

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