Yes, Star Wars is back on the big screen with The Mandalorian and Groguand the same day it arrived in theaters, it landed in two Disney parks: Disneyland in Anaheim, CA and Disney World in Orlando, FL.
Disney Imagineering and Disney Experiences used the new film, and the fact that it was made with the help of the Unreal Engine, to rethink and re-theme Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. It’s really fun now, even after more than a dozen attractions, and the addition of The Mandalorian and the irresistibly adorable Grogu gives the attraction a shot of energy it really needed.
It is not a stand-alone adaptation of the film and did not require any physical upgrades to the Falcon or the attraction queues. You’ll still board the Millennium Falcon and join The Mandalorian and Grogu for a mission (the three roles of pilot, gunner, and engineer remain), but the engineer role has been completely revamped and is no longer the least exciting seat in the cockpit.
This is because the engineer now chooses the planet; Bespin, Endor or Coruscant: three different environments and guests choose where they go. That variability was the central goal of the entire rethink, according to Morgan McDowell, senior software project manager at Walt Disney Imagineering.
“Now we have three different planets that our guests can fly to and traverse, and all the different variability within the planets that they go to,” McDowell said. “It’s more like a traditional video game: If I want to go right, I can go right. If I want to go left, I go left.”
All three roles still have a variety of buttons and controls to interact with. Pilots get a noticeably smoother experience and the opportunity to make the jump to light speed. Gunners play a key role in collecting the bounty, with blaster fire now visibly tracking targets.
But the engineer is the one who handles planet selection and has near-constant access to Grogu throughout the trip: there’s a dedicated button that triggers scenes with the character, and taking care of Grogu is woven into the mission from start to finish.
The view outside the cabin has also been improved. It runs at 4K, 60 frames per second (an improvement over the original) and in all three environments it is fluid and vibrant, without any judder or visual inconsistency that could break the immersion in a motion simulator. A big part of making this possible is the move to Unreal Engine 5, new showcase gaming PCs, and all-new Nvidia GPUs driving the appeal.
What makes the technical setup particularly interesting is that Disney Imagineering doesn’t run Unreal like it would at home. Unreal Engine is typically designed to run on a single GPU, but this attraction demands much more than that.
“We’re running all-new Nvidia GPUs that boost graphics, as well as powering the new game running on Unreal Engine 5.”
Morgan McDowell, Walt Disney’s Imagination
So Imagineering built its own custom version of the Unreal Engine capable of running on multiple GPUs simultaneously, which is what allows the attraction to render everything in real time: the main screen, the individual position screens, the lighting package, the audio, and up to six inputs at once during a four- to five-minute ride. That is a difficult task.
“We’re running all-new Nvidia GPUs that power the graphics, as well as powering the new video game running on Unreal Engine 5,” McDowell explained. He didn’t share the specific GPU model or configuration, but confirmed that it’s a highly customized setup, and that Disney’s version of Unreal, which is currently following along with the publicly released versions 5.7 and 5.8, is significantly different from what’s available on the market.
“I think I have some of the smartest people on my team owning, innovating and updating our version of Unreal Engine, and that unlocks so many different things we can do that Unreal offers, but then we can do it in a multi-GPU setup,” he said.
The partnership with Lucasfilm was instrumental in making the day-and-date release work. McDowell described teams from both sides working together at the Florida facility 24 hours a day, taking advantage of the pull, flagging issues and iterating on builds in real time.
“We had a lot of our Lucasfilm partners, or their QA lead, here working with us day and night: getting the new versions of the new hardware into the attraction, and then running the game with them, and them making adjustments, and us making adjustments all together,” he said.
The result is an attraction that feels genuinely fresh. Random events spread across three planets, specific role interactions, and Grogu moments give it a choose-your-own-adventure quality that carries over multiple attractions in a way the original never achieved. There are also secret modes to unlock, including one specific to Grogu, and Easter eggs that vary depending on the planet you visit and the path you take through it. There’s even a trench running moment that, for what it’s worth, made me think of flying a Lego X-Wing at the Sphere in Las Vegas – high praise for a theme park ride.
While Rise of the Resistance had arguably eclipsed Smugglers Run as the centerpiece of the Star Wars experience at both parks, The Mandalorian and Grogu’s update not only closes that gap, but reframes what the attraction is. Less of a fixed journey, more of a chance to live your own Star Wars story differently every time you come aboard.
More broadly, deploying a real-time video game experience across two parks on the same day as a movie release speaks to what Unreal Engine is making possible for Disney Imagineering and how quickly that capability is moving. Smugglers Run isn’t even the only attraction running it: Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin at Magic Kingdom already runs Unreal, and it’s clear Imagineering is thinking about where it goes next.
“We’re always looking at new features that are coming and working with Epic on what’s next,” McDowell said, “and we’re starting to think about how we can use that technology to provide the best experience for guests in our parks.”
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds.
