Now that Star Wars fans have had a few months to soak up the glory of The Old Republic, the series is ready to move on with a new video game franchise. Spike TV sent out a press release notifying us that they'll be showing an exclusive look at the project on May 31 during a pre-E3 episode of GameTrailers TV, and that a full premiere will follow on June 4 on Spike's "E3 All-Access Live" set to air 7:00 pm PT. We're also told that the LucasArts title will be debuting at E3 2012 so we'll likely be able to bring you our own coverage as it becomes available.

“I am blown away by both the caliber of the team on this project and their bold vision for this new ‘Star Wars’ title,” said the host of the program Geoff Keighley. “I can’t wait to introduce our viewers to this game and show off the footage that left my jaw on the floor when I first saw it.”

What will the game be? We’ve taken some time to speculate, and to go over some rumors that have popped up over the past few months…

A few months ago "Star Wars 1313" was registered by Lucasfilm, and text in the filing suggested that it might be for a video game. This was the last we've heard of it, but some digging (see: Googling) pulls up a link on the Star Wars Wiki to "CT-1313," which was "an alias used by Boba Fett on Aargau when he was confronted by a clone trooper close to his own age."

A few months ago, LucasArts put up a job listing for "an aerial combat game." Not much has come of it since then, but some have speculated that this might mean a new space-based Star Wars flight game. Maybe a new Star Wars Rogue Squadron?

Yeah, we know - they said it's a "new" franchise, but that doesn't mean it won't be a game made in the style of Star Wars Battlefront. Maybe they'll change the name, call it Star Wars: Warzones, and then act like Battlefront never happened. Or they'll just make it a Battlefront game, and the "new franchise" thing was just to throw us off.

While this wouldn't be an actual "new" franchise either, we wouldn't be too surprised to see LucasArts attempt a new, traditional lightsaber game, similar to Jedi Outcast or The Force Unleashed. The Force Unleashed II was bad enough that it sort of destroyed any good will still attached to that series, so it would make sense to abandon it entirely in favor of a new franchise with similar gameplay.

We're going to go ahead and call this a "spiritual successor to Republic Commando." The original didn't do well enough to justify making it a true sequel, but it's a strong enough concept that we'd like to see revisited. Squad-based Star Wars FPS? Yes, please.

Who knows? Maybe LucasArts is going to throw a curve ball at us. Maybe, just maybe, this is a Star Wars game that none of us see coming, and if that's the case, well... then we're extra excited.