Electronic Arts has reportedly cancelled its open-world Star Wars game. the game had been in development in EA in Vancouver following a shutdown of Visceral Games.
EA Vancouver which is a large studio that is notable for games like FIFA and Star Wars Battlefront, had been working on this open-world Star Wards game since October of 2017, when EA closed Visceral Games.
According to the report by Kotaku, EA Vancouver continued to use some of the assests from Visceral’s tilte, but transitioned the title to become an open-world experience. When EA Vancouver tool over, the entire project was rebooted in order to transform it into an open world game.
The project is now cancelled, and EA has not responded nor made an statement following the cancellation. Back when EA talked about the demise of Visceral Games following its shut down, the gaming company said,
It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design. A development team from across EA Worldwide Studios will take over development of this game, led by a team from EA Vancouver that has already been working on the project.
The report also noted of what the game would have turned out to be if it was launched. Though the game was still very early in development, it was aiming for a release in 2020. The game would involve playing as a scoundrel or bounty hunter who could explore various open-world planets and work with different factions across the Star Wars universe.
There are no other news of lay-offs or any closure of a studio following this transition. The news confirms that the industry is looking to cut costs in the development of games, where big studios like EA and Activision are already on the track to cut costs.
Whether or not this project will start again is too early to speculate. Especially since the announcement was just made. But the report states that some in the studio hope that the project can be restarted and finished someday.
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