According to various reports from across the game industry media, Electronic Arts has cancelled an open-world Star Wars project that had been in the pipeline at EA Vancouver.
BREAKING: EA has canceled its open-world Star Wars game, three sources tell me. This is the one that EA Vancouver took over when Visceral shut down in October 2017. Not clear what EA Vancouver will do next – rumors suggest yet another Star Wars project… https://t.co/OtZ6OTE1np
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 16, 2019
EA Vancouver is one of the larger subsidiaries of Electronic Arts and usually handles the yearly projects like FIFA as well as major AAA projects like Battlefront. The company picked up the pieces of this open-world game in October 2017 after Visceral closed down. That project, code-named Ragtag, was a linear action-adventure game directed by Uncharted director Amy Hennig. EA Vancouver had already been working in a support role on the game, but when EA shuttered Visceral, they took over the primary work on the project.
Since taking over the game, the original Ragtag concept was completely reworked, only some of the already completed art assets being used for the revamped version of the game.
Don’t worry fans, because there’s at least one other major Star Wars project in the works. The project called Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order over at Respawn Entertainment is still undergoing development, and this cancelled game is not the same as Fallen Order. That game is currently scheduled for fall 2019.
It will also be interesting to see how Disney respond to this latest development. Given that the widespread controversy over loot boxes in games like Star Wars Battlefront II caused huge negative press for the popular sci-fi brand.
EA has not revealed what the next project for the Vancouver studio will be, or if they will continue a similar Star Wars project in the future. Although some other game studios, like the ever-rambunctious Devolver, have announced that they’d like a crack at such a challenge.
