ILM artists creating concept art for Star Wars Beyond Victory mixed reality project

Inside ILM’s Art Department: How Star Wars: Beyond Victory Was Designed

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Industrial Light & Magic is pulling back the curtain on its creative process.

A new behind-the-scenes feature highlights the work of ILM artists who helped bring Star Wars: Beyond Victory to life — offering a closer look at how the studio designs worlds, characters, and environments for its growing lineup of immersive Star Wars experiences.

And yes, it’s as detailed (and nerdy) as you’d hope.

A Look Inside the ILM Art Department

The spotlight focuses on artists from ILM’s San Francisco studio who contributed concept art and visual development to Star Wars: Beyond Victory, the mixed-reality playset released in 2025.

The feature showcases selected artwork and commentary from the team, giving fans a rare glimpse at how early designs evolve into fully realized interactive Star Wars environments.

Rather than just showing finished assets, the breakdown highlights:

  • Concept sketches
  • Environment exploration
  • Color and lighting studies
  • Iterations of characters and locations

In short: the raw creative stage where Star Wars visuals are born.

What Is Star Wars: Beyond Victory?

For those who missed it, Star Wars: Beyond Victory is a mixed-reality experience developed by Industrial Light & Magic and Lucasfilm.

Released in October 2025 for Meta Quest headsets, the project blends storytelling, arcade gameplay, and sandbox-style play in a hybrid interactive format.

The experience includes:

  • A narrative adventure mode
  • Arcade-style gameplay
  • A playset mode that lets players create Star Wars scenarios

Set around the era of Solo: A Star Wars Story, it introduces original characters and brings fans directly into the galaxy through immersive mixed-reality technology.

It’s part of ILM’s ongoing push into interactive storytelling beyond traditional film and television.

From Concept Art to Mixed Reality

The newly shared artwork demonstrates how ILM’s art department approaches worldbuilding for interactive media.

Designing for mixed reality means environments must:

  • Work from multiple angles
  • Function interactively
  • Feel grounded in the Star Wars aesthetic
  • Blend seamlessly with real-world spaces

That’s a different challenge compared to traditional film concept art.

Instead of designing a single cinematic frame, artists are building spaces players can explore from every direction — essentially turning concept art into playable environments.

ILM’s Expanding Role in Star Wars Storytelling

Industrial Light & Magic has been shaping the visual language of Star Wars since George Lucas founded the studio in 1975.

Originally created to produce groundbreaking visual effects for the original film, ILM has since evolved into one of the most influential visual-effects and immersive-experience studios in the world.

Projects like Beyond Victory show how that legacy continues — not just on cinema screens, but in VR, mixed reality, and interactive storytelling.

The art department remains central to that evolution, translating Star Wars concepts into environments fans can actually step inside.

Why This Behind-the-Scenes Look Matters

Art-department showcases like this aren’t just for industry professionals.

They give fans insight into:

  • How Star Wars worlds are visualized
  • How characters evolve from sketches to final models
  • How ILM adapts its design process for new technology
  • The collaborative process behind modern Star Wars experiences

It also reinforces something longtime fans already know:
before the visual effects, before the gameplay, before the final render — Star Wars always begins with artists.

The Future of ILM’s Interactive Star Wars Projects

With Beyond Victory now part of ILM’s growing immersive catalog, the art-department spotlight suggests the studio is continuing to invest heavily in interactive Star Wars storytelling.

That likely means:

  • More mixed-reality experiences
  • Expanded worldbuilding beyond film and TV
  • Continued experimentation with new formats

If this behind-the-scenes look proves anything, it’s that ILM’s creative pipeline is still evolving — and still very much at the center of how Star Wars looks and feels.

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