LucasArts (formerly known as Lucasfilm Games) was an video game developer and publisher formed in May 1982 as a video game development subsidiary of Lucasfilm.
LucasArts developed the earliest Sam & Max video game, Sam & Max Hit the Road, which released in November 1993. LucasArts also announced a second Sam & Max game in 2002, Sam & Max: Freelance Police, but this was cancelled in 2004, due to LucasArts no longer having confidence in the adventure game format. Much of the staff that had worked on Freelance Police would go on to form Telltale Games later in 2004, acquiring the video game rights to Sam & Max in 2005 following the expiration of LucasArts' rights to the series that same year.
Aside from Sam & Max, LucasArts was best known for their line of other point-and-click adventure games from the late 80's to the early 2000's, such as Maniac Mansion and its sequel Day of the Tentacle, the Monkey Island series, Full Throttle, The Dig and Grim Fandango. Starting in the 90's, they also published numerous games in the Star Wars franchise, including the Rogue Squadron, Battlefront, Knights of the Old Republic, Lego Star Wars and The Force Unleashed series. However, unlike their adventure games, the development of these games were primarily outsourced to third-party studios. Sam and Max themselves often made cameos in other LucasArts games.
After Lucasfilm was acquired by Disney in late 2012, LucasArts was largely closed in 2013, though a small selection of staff was retained to handle the licensing of Lucasfilm properties to third-party companies. In 2018, Disney rereleased Hit the Road on Steam and GOG using the ScummVM interpreter to allow the game to run on modern computers.