HOW TO
Be a Part of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
Play Disney Parks
Interactive Park Experiences
We’ll go ahead and tell you the odds: If you’re a Star Wars™ fan, the new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge park will be a very big deal. And with the Play Disney Parks app, not only can you visit the park, you can become part of its story.
Last summer, Disney released Play Disney Parks, an app designed to enhance your visit to Disneyland and Walt Disney World. The app reports live wait times, has games to play with family and friends while you wait in line, and lets you interact with characters and objects in the park itself.
Now, when you open Play Disney Parks in Galaxy’s Edge, the app transforms your device into a fully operational Star Wars datapad, one that lets you become part of the action.
Designed as a sketchy smuggler’s port called Black Spire Outpost on the remote planet of Batuu, Galaxy’s Edge is centered on two major attractions:
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run lets you experience what it’s like to fly the Falcon. (We’ll pause here to let that sink in for a moment.)
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance—opening in early December at Walt Disney World in Florida and in January 2020 at Disneyland in Anaheim—sets you in the midst of a battle between the First Order (the side with the stormtroopers) and the Resistance (the good guys).
Asa Kalama, executive creative director for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and the Star Wars: Datapad integration, says the app was always intended to be part of Galaxy’s Edge.
“We designed the land from the ground up to support mobile interaction,” says Kalama. “One thing we thought about: As visitors to a strange outpost at the edge of the galaxy, what tools do you wish you had at your disposal?”
With your datapad, you can communicate with droids, eavesdrop on First Order transmissions, help decide who gains control of Black Spire Outpost, and interact with physical Easter eggs hidden throughout the park.
Kalama says the idea was to let fans live out their own Star Wars stories. “We already know the story of Tatooine; we know the story of Naboo. We wanted to create a place that served as a scaffolding upon which users could project their own story, but that we as keepers could use to inject new characters and plotlines.”
The app will have these major functions (many of which are unlocked by solving puzzles):
• Hack. When you walk into Galaxy’s Edge, you become part of a massive alternate-reality game called Outpost Control. It works like this: Being evil, the First Order has scattered surveillance devices all over the doorways of Black Spire Outpost in an attempt to learn about Resistance presence there. Guests can “hack into” these devices by solving a puzzle, then decide whether to aid the Resistance by disabling them or score points with the First Order by reactivating them. Throughout the day, a score is tallied and a winner is declared—and the game begins again. (Kalama says that, on the whole, the Resistance is currently winning. But it’s early.)
• Scan. Use the app to peek inside cargo crates—including those in line at Smugglers Run—and interact with the droids rambling around the Outpost.
• Translate. The app translates signs and markers written in Aurebesh, the language of Star Wars (which is very hard to read otherwise). On the two main rides, Smugglers Run and Rise of the Resistance, the app will reveal more about the experience. As you travel through the park, it’ll let you read signs and understand alien tongues. “One of the things that makes Star Wars so great is this diversity of alien cultures, so we wanted guests to have that simple travel tool,” says Kalama.
• Tune in. As a remote outpost for smugglers, Black Spire is studded with antennas. The app lets you eavesdrop on their transmissions. Sometimes these are just conversations between villagers or official First Order dispatches. But sometimes that gibberish you hear might be a bigger part of the Black Spire backstory, which was created by Disney Imagineers and the Lucasfilm story group.
Interestingly, you don’t actually choose between the light and dark side in Galaxy’s Edge. Your allegiance is based on how you interact. As you travel through Black Spire, you’ll have the chance to support the Resistance, pledge your loyalty to the Supreme Leader, or go rogue as a freelance scoundrel.
For every job you complete, you’ll get a digital reward, like ship schematics, star maps, and galactic credits. And with Episode IX and shows like The Mandalorian coming up, the app is built to expand as the Star Wars universe does. “It’s designed almost like an operating system that can evolve over time,” Kalama says.