Disney’s big Millennium Falcon ride faces a classic game design problem: balancing difficulty

Disney is working on one of the biggest projects in its theme park history. Galaxy Edge is the Star Wars-themed land that’s coming to Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California next summer, with the Walt Disney World version opening at the resort’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios park in Orlando, Florida that winter. One of Galaxy’s Edge’s marque attractions will have park guests flying the famous Millennium Falcon, and the project is giving Disney’s Imagineers (that’s what Disney calls it theme park designers and engineers) challenges that are all too familiar to those that have worked in video games (Disney declined to comment on this story).

The Millennium Falcon ride is a simulator, meaning that guests ride in a vehicle that can turn and shake to simulate larger movements. Coupled with a video screen, a simulator can give people the sensation of flight. It’s similar to what the original Disney Star Wars ride, Star Tours, has been doing since 1987.