LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga oddly allows its hub worlds to break canon during story missions, with elements of the prequels, sequels, and original trilogy overlapping during exploration. Along with LEGO Skywalker Saga's many gameplay improvements, the game also features many improvements to its hub worlds. By increasing not only the number of major hub worlds, but also adding tons of meticulous detail and interesting puzzles and quests to complete, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is TT Games' most immersive LEGO game yet. Each hub world is filled with not only locations that are featured in the films, but also new areas that feel right at home in the Star Wars universe, all helping the player to truly feel as though they are exploring the galaxy far, far away.
With all the detail put into LEGO Skywalker Saga's impressive graphics and details that make the hub worlds feel alive, it is strange that TT Games allowed for the hubs to break Star Wars canon by introducing side quests that use elements from later and earlier films. For instance, while playing the campaign for The Phantom Menace, players can encounter quests and elements that reference the Clone Wars while exploring Coruscant. If a player encounters these references to things that won't exist for years after the story they are playing, it can end up breaking immersion. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is still ultimately a LEGO game, but it is odd to notice prequel ships in the original trilogy, or clone troopers during the events of Episode I.
While it makes sense for not everything to adhere strictly to canon while exploring LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga's many planets in Galaxy Free Roam mode, it's a bit stranger for this to be the case in the more tailored episode campaigns. Additionally, by nature, the LEGO games serve as both a love letter to the source franchise as well as a parody, spoofing the franchise with the iconic LEGO brand of humor. Because of this, it is normal for LEGO games to break canon when it comes to making jokes, often breaking the fourth wall or inserting visual gags. However, the Clone Wars references that break the timeline canon feel less like an intentional spoofing and more like an oversight.
How LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Can Fix Hub Worlds
The canon-breaking hub worlds may not be one of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga's biggest problems, but removing these references would help the game's campaigns maintain immersion. The best way to approach fixing this issue would be to keep a separate world state in the playable stories versus the Galaxy Free Roam mode. Since each episode is selected separately on the main menu, it is clearly considered to be a separate mode. While in the campaigns, certain canon-breaking elements should be flagged not to appear, thus helping to maintain the illusion of immersion in the story. Such a change would only need to be done to the small handful of planets that appear in multiple films, such as Coruscant and Tatooine.
TT Games put a lot of thought into LEGO Skywalker Saga, with the game boasting movie-like detail. With that in mind, it feels out of place for elements from later films to seep into the story missions for the earlier ones. While it certainly doesn't ruin any of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga's wonderful world and charm, fixing its canon-breaking elements in the open world would help maintain the game's immersion and meticulous attention to detail.