Electronic Arts has finally given the axe to its story-driven, single-player-focused Star Wars game, reports Kotaku. The game, which was once in development under the now-shuttered EA studio Visceral Games, had been in the works for years, most recently under the leadership of Uncharted director Amy Hennig. In June, Hennig revealed she had left EA to form her own studio, leaving the project’s fate up in the air.
EA has reportedly canceled its story-driven Star Wars game
A disappointing end for a once-hopeful narrative Star Wars game
A disappointing end for a once-hopeful narrative Star Wars game
Image: EA
is a Senior Producer on Decoder. Previously, he reported on the technology and gaming industries for more than a decade.
Now, according to Kotaku’s Jason Schreier, EA has officially canceled the game, despite the studio responsible, EA Vancouver, having largely restarted from scratch with what it inherited from Visceral back in October 2017.
A sad end for a game many fans hoped would carry the narrative Star Wars flame
“There’s been speculation overnight about one of our Star Wars projects. As a natural part of the creative process, the great work by our team in Vancouver continues and will evolve into future Star Wars content and games,” the company said in a statement. “We’re fully committed to making more Star Wars games, we’re very excited about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order from Respawn, and we’ll share more about our new projects when the time is right.”
The news is a sad end for a project that many fans hoped would carry the flame for narrative Star Wars games. George Lucas’ universe has historically been home to some of the most formative role-playing titles in the industry, when the now-closed LucasArts oversaw publishing and development of series like Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Knight, and The Force Unleashed.
But story-driven Star Wars games have taken a back seat in recent years as EA, which obtained exclusive Star Wars publishing rights from Disney in 2013, put its focus on more mainstream multiplayer titles, including its Battlefront reboot. As EA’s statement points out, the company is still pursing a single-player game in development at EA-owned Respawn Entertainment, the studio behind Titanfall that EA acquired in 2017, that’s to be called Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Update 1/16, 1:50PM ET: Added statement from EA.
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