Updated January 18, 2019: Kotaku updated its story and said that EA Vancouver is now working on another small-scale Star Wars project. It's unclear if this is a single-player or multiplayer game, but we do know that it's not a sprawling open-world experience. Speaking with Kinda Funny Games, Star Wars writer Gary Whitta said, "It has been catastrophically mismanaged. If I were Disney, I'd be... furious. I saw a bunch of that game, and it looked terrific. It would have been Star Wars Uncharted."
It seems like EA's problems with the Star Wars franchise aren't going to end anytime soon. When Star Wars Battlefront II released, the title was panned by critics and gamers alike for its pay-to-win microtransactions. It even sparked an international crackdown on loot boxes in countries like the United States, Belgium, and Australia.
After that fiasco, EA announced that Visceral Games — the Dead Space team working on a linear Star Wars game — was shutting down. However, that wasn't the end for that team's Star Wars game. The linear adventure was rebooted as an open-world experience and placed into the capable hands of EA Vancouver.
You may recognize EA Vancouver as the support team from franchises like FIFA, but the studio is made up for industry veterans and features a lot of talent. According to a report by Kotaku, "when EA Vancouver took over, it rebooted this Star Wars project entirely, keeping some of the art assets, but transforming it into an open-world game."
The report claims that this open-world Star Wars game has been cancelled by EA. It's unclear why this is the case, and the company didn't respond to Kotaku's request for an official statement either. What is clear that there is considerable turmoil at EA when it comes to the Star Wars franchise. Respawn Entertainment — the developer behind Titanfall — is also working on a Star Wars game called Jedi: Fallen Order which should launch in 2019. Here's hoping that that project is on firm ground because the EA Vancouver cancellation is somewhat of a shock.
During the last earnings call, EA openly discussed EA Vancouver's open-world Star Wars game and assured investors that it was managing the property well. Hopefully we'll learn more about what happened at EA Vancouver in the coming days to get a better picture of the situation.
What do you think of this? Let us know. Do you think there's another open-world Star Wars game in development at EA?
