Club Penguin’s Star Wars Takeover Launched 13 Years Ago Today, and Yes, Darth Vader Was a Penguin

Thirteen years ago today, Star Wars invaded Club Penguin.

On July 25, 2013, Disney launched the Club Penguin Star Wars Takeover, transforming its cheerful online island into a surprisingly elaborate version of A New Hope. There were lightsabers, Stormtrooper costumes, space battles and a Death Star approaching an island normally occupied by brightly coloured penguins discussing furniture.

It was a strange fit.

It was also somehow a perfect one.

A New Hope, But Everyone Was a Penguin

The takeover was built around the story of the original 1977 film. Players travelled from Tatooine to the Death Star before joining the Rebel assault, completing missions and unlocking new rewards along the way.

Club Penguin’s own characters were recast in familiar roles. Cadence became Princess Cadence, Sensei appeared as Obi-Wan Sensei, and the villainous polar bear Herbert took the role of Darth Vader as Darth Herbert.

This meant one of cinema’s most feared villains was now represented by an irritated cartoon polar bear wearing a breathing mask.

Star Wars had survived the Holiday Special. It could survive this.

Players could also dress their penguins as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO and Imperial Stormtroopers. The proportions were occasionally challenging, particularly for Chewbacca, but Club Penguin had never allowed anatomy to interfere with a good costume.

It Was Club Penguin’s Biggest Event Yet

Disney described the takeover as the largest online event Club Penguin had produced at the time.

It included three new mini-games, 18 decorated rooms, a 3D trailer and an in-world lightsaber duelling system. The development team said its goal was to create a genuine Club Penguin version of A New Hope, with additional details included for more dedicated Star Wars fans.

The event lasted for three weeks, ending on August 15, 2013. It arrived less than a year after Disney acquired Lucasfilm, making it one of the earliest examples of Star Wars being folded into Disney’s existing collection of games and online worlds.

Disney had purchased Club Penguin years earlier, so the ingredients were already sitting in the same corporate cupboard. Someone merely had to notice that a lightsaber could be held surprisingly well by a creature with flippers.

The Takeover Captured a Particular Era of Online Games

The Star Wars Takeover belonged to a period when large crossover events could temporarily transform an entire online game.

It was not simply a themed shop with several expensive character skins. Rooms changed, new activities appeared, and the event told a loose story over several locations.

For younger players, it may even have been their first interactive trip through the original trilogy.

Today, Club Penguin itself is gone. Disney closed the original game in 2017, leaving behind screenshots, old videos and the powerful memory of millions of children repeatedly typing the same jokes into a heavily moderated chat window.

But the Star Wars Takeover remains one of its most memorable events.

It proved that A New Hope still worked after replacing nearly every human character with a penguin.

And for three glorious weeks, Darth Vader’s greatest enemy was not Luke Skywalker.

It was a flightless seabird wearing a brown wig.