In 2015, Z-Man was in negotiations with German board game publisher Hans im Gluck Verlags over several games, potentially including Carcassonne: Star Wars (see "'Carcassonne Star Wars'"). Z-Man has now released confirmation to distributors that it has approval for a single print run of the Disney-licensed game. The game will be available in stores in late 2016.

The new game is similar to Carcassonne, but with several changes. Trading Routes, Merchants, Asteroid Fields, Explorers, Planets, and Conquerors take the roles formerly occupied by Roads, Robbers, Cities, Knights, Cloisters, and Monks, respectively. The Farmer role has been removed. One notable rules change allows players to place their meeple on Planets adjacent to a tile just placed.

Three factions exist for the game: two Empire colors (black and white), two Rebel colors (red and green), and one Bounty Hunter color (orange). Factions symbols on certain tiles provide bonuses to that faction to control tiles: when points are allocated, die rolls based on how much influence your faction has in that placement affect scoring, though all involved get some points. In addition to normal 2 – 5 player games, there is a four-player team variant of Empire versus Rebels as well.

MSRP is $39.99.