In 2017, Electronic Arts pulled the plug on
Visceral Games,
which had been working on a new Star Wars game, codenamed Ragtag, under
Amy Hennig's direction. Elements of the project were put to use as the
foundation of another Star Wars game at EA Vancouver, codenamed Orca,
until that too was
shut down in early 2019.
According to a new
Kotaku
report, that wasn't the extent of it: EA apparently also canned a third
Star Wars game last year that was intended as a spinoff of the Star
Wars Battlefront shooter series. Codenamed Viking, it was reportedly
expected to be out in the fall of this year, but once it became clear
that it wouldn't make that release date, it was canceled as well.
The
axe actually fell in the first half of 2019, according to Kotaku's
report, which details how difficulties in coordination between EA
Vancouver and Criterion Games in London hampered the project. Criterion
is now back to handling the
Need for Speed series.
Electronic Arts was given an exclusive license to develop Star Wars
games in 2013, but it hasn't worked out to be quite the coup that most
people expected. On top of the Ragtag/Orca/Viking headaches, the Star
Wars Battlefront comeback was derailed by the
loot box mess sparked by Battlefront 2. The only resounding success to come out of the deal so far has been
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Hopefully
there are better days ahead for Star Wars fans: The report says EA has
two new Star Wars games in the works, the Fallen Order sequel at
Respawn, and a "smaller, more unusual" game at EA Motive.
0 Comments