Anna Daniels
The Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run ride has been open in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge for nearly 9 months now, but it has only been recently discovered that the attraction has some secret unlock-able alternate modes. Below, learn about Chewbacca mode (or otherwise called the Wookiee mode or Chewbacca hack), a new way of riding the attraction that is only available if you know the secret code.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiFfbkTTM_s]
It’s not uncommon for game developers to hide hidden alternate modes or Easter eggs in video games, usually involving a series of complex steps (or a code) to unlock something that wouldn’t likely happen during normal gameplay. The Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run is part attraction, part ride. You are recruited by Hondo Ohnaka to run a smuggling mission with the most infamous hung of junk in the galaxy, on loan from Chewbacca and the Resistance while they are hiding out on Batuu.
The mission itself is always the same (although there are two other missions rumored to be in development for future release): a trip to Corellia in pursuit of a First Order train carrying coaxium. During the motion simulator ride, a flight crew of six controls the Millennium Falcon, with the Pilots attempting to get the Falcon behind the train so that the Engineers can fire the grappling harpoons to capture a train car full of coaxium while the Gunners shoot down the escort TIE fighters. Unlike most console games, the game is mostly on rails – you can’t actually crash the Millennium Falcon and not touching any of the controls still gets you to the end point (we’ve tried both, click on the links to watch those adventures).
Since the attraction first launched in Summer 2019, there have been rumors of possible alternate modes. In the Galaxy’s Edge discord channel, user aluisi77 posted last August the following:
Last reservation when you had to have them in June I was doing single rider with my girl. We got split up. I got grouped with 4 teenage girls and a older woman who was with them. The second I got grouped with them one of the girls said you are going to listen and do exactly what she tells you to do. Talking to them trying to find out what it was about 3 of the 4 teenage girls pointed to their friend and said her dad designed this ride the game part of it. She went red in the face and shyly said yes. She told me her dad and the programmers hid a ton of secret things by using different button pushes before taking off in the ride. They told me about Wookie mode. They said everyone needs to hold a non flashing button at the same time to the right of their lit up one before powering up your station or aka starting the ride and everyone hitting there flashing button while holding the non lit up one at the same time as well. And Hando would be replaced on the view screen by Chewie the whole time speaking wookie. We tried and failed and they seam disappointed said they have been trying to trigger it all day. I talked to the older lady and she confirmed that the girls dad did work on the ride and he told her the same thing to get wookie mode to work. So there it have fun let me know if you get it to work
Since then, fans have speculated about this rumored mode, some suggesting it was just a rumor that wasn’t actually possible (like obtaining the third container of coaxium), but over the weekend (almost 9 months after the attraction first made it’s debut), the mode was finally confirmed to be real. A video from Fresh Baked confirmed that it existed, so we headed to Disneyland to check it out for ourselves.
How does it work? To activate Chewbacca Mode (or Wookiee mode), you need to have a full flight crew of six participants. Do not try doing this if you are a smaller group because you will be grouped together with other random people in line and it won’t work unless they are also participating (and honestly, I wouldn’t spring this on random people in line as it could be their first time on the attraction). Each member of your flight crew needs to enter a precise set of actions into their console before the castmember starts the ride after checking all the seatbelts are secured. If they are not entered in before the cast member leaves the cockpit, it won’t work. And these actions need to be done after you buckle your seat belt.
Both pilots need to push their steering joystick to the extreme up or down or left or right, and while doing that, hit the activation button.
The Engineers and Gunners need to push and hold down on one of the white buttons while pushing their yellow activation button.
After the cast member checks the seatbelts are secured and leaves and hits the go button, you will hear Chewbacca roar. This indicates that the Chewbacca mode has been officially activated.
What happens differently? Chewbacca mode basically replaces Hondo Ohnaka with Chewbacca. So instead of getting instructions from Hondo throughout your adventure, you will instead hear the roar of the infamous Wookiee as he reacts to your choices. On our ride you could hear how disappointed he was in us and how annoyed he was that we were wrecking his ship. The mode is a bunch of fun, but I would not recommend it for your first Smuggler’s Run ride as Hondo isn’t there to tell you when and how to brake and do other things that are needed.
The crazy thing here is the initial Discord report said that “the programmers hid a ton of secret things by using different button pushes before taking off in the ride,” and this is only the first mode that. we’ve learned about. I’m sure there are many other Easter eggs hidden in the attraction waiting to be unlocked.
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