With Star Wars: The Force Awakens less than a month away, it is time to pick a side. Will you join the resistance and fight for the Light? Or will you channel fear and hate and join the Dark Side? Google’s letting you choose.
The search giant teamed up with Lucasfilm and Disney to bring the Light and Dark Side to its services like Gmail, Chromecast, Google Maps, and more. Of course, the choice is yours. Head on over to google.com/starwars and the website lets you drag a slider to the side you want to be on.
Once you pick a side, the changes may take a while to set. You’ll begin seeing Star Wars creeping through your Google Apps. Android Wear gets a new watch face, Chromecast gets new backgrounds, Inbox and Gmail get a new theme, and in Google Maps, the penman becomes a Stormtrooper or a Resistance pilot. Navigating turns your location (the blue dot) into a TIE-Fighter or X-Wing. Star Wars events are also added to your calendar.
You’ll also notice the YouTube progress bar turns into a blue or red light saber, but that’s not all this Star Wars promotion changes. Depending on what side you choose, you could alter the balance of the force. At the bottom of the website is a bar with the Resistance (Rebel Alliance) on the left and The First Order (Empire) on the right. Google wants users to share their choices with the hashtag, #ChooseYourSide, which helps power the indicator. As of right now, it looks as though the Dark is seeping through the Light.
It’s not like Disney needs more marketing support for the incredibly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which releases later in December, but it seems as though the folks at Google were itching to help.
Apart from Search, Translate, and Waze, you need a Gmail account to see the changes in your services, and Google Apps for Work, Education or Government accounts aren’t supported. If you want to go back to being a neutral party across the galaxies, simply drag the slider back to the middle.
Disney also announced that the Star Wars-Google collaboration will include a Google Cardboard virtual reality experience developed with Verizon, with a new story and never-before-seen content that “ties directly” into the opening of The Force Awakens. The VR story will be available via the official Star Wars app on both iOS and Android devices on December 2.
Google’s having a lot of fun with this promotion, and there’s even a video to go along with it.
You should be able to feel the changes in the Force with Google apps on Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows. Keep a sharp eye out for all the changes you see once you choose a side, and may the Force be with you.