EA’s track record with Star Wars games isn’t stellar, and a new report suggests that it has cancelled an open-world game based on the series that was being developed by EA Vancouver.
The news comes from Kotaku, which has spoken to several people at the company, and suggests that EA is no longer developing the game, which was first announced in October 2017.
While the news is disappointing, it’s not completely unexpected. Despite being announced a few years ago, nothing has been seen of the project, and EA has only mentioned it a few times.
The open-world game actually came about from another Star Wars game that was cancelled by EA, a linear single-player game codenamed Ragtag and developed by Dead Space creator Visceral.
When EA cancelled that game and closed Visceral (in a move so ruthless it would give Emperor Palpatine pause), EA Vancouver stepped in to create an open-world game using some of the art assets used in Ragtag.
The saga continues
It’s a shame, as an open world game set in the Star Wars universe could be a lot of fun. Kotaku spoke to a number of people familiar with the game, which was code-named Orca, and found out some more details.
The game was in very early development, which at least means there wasn’t a huge amount of wasted work, and the game apparently would let you play as a Han Solo-like scoundrel, or a bounty hunter. You would be able to visit and explore open-world planets and work with factions from the Star War universe.
EA’s handling of the Star Wars licence hasn’t been great these past few years. As well as numerous games getting cancelled, its Battlefront II game launched amid criticisms of microtransactions and limited content, which impacted sales.
As Kotaku’s sources suggested, EA is likely to concentrate on a smaller-scale Star Wars game that can be developed and launched by 2020, which could be just in time for the next generation of consoles.
It’s also worth noting that EA has not made anyone redundant in this move.
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