Some franchises are destined for great things in the right hands. Star Wars with EA is not one of those cases. For some time it seemed like EA was in the right track after acquiring the money-making license back in 2013. Since that time the publisher appears to be having a rough time to figure out how to make a good game with one of the most recognizable brands in the world. They seemed to be in the right path after releasing their first game, a revival of the old Battlefront series, but mixed reviews a release full of bugs that were patched as they were found made the game fall through with the fans. The announced a sequel shortly, and they managed to screw up big time with a monetization scheme that bled the player, as well as a less than stellar campaign mode.
Bad moves, Bad Games
In what seems to be a trend of bad news for Star Wars gamer around the world, EA shortly announced the cancelation of a single player platform that was being developed by Visceral Games as they are closing down the studio for god. To add insult to injury the future of the last remaining announced project “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order” seems to be stuck on limbo. Respawn Studios has halted work on the project after EA announced they were focusing their efforts on next-generation games. No additional information has been offered since then. Star Wars fan seem to be doomed to wait a long time before playing an engaging offering with the brand of it. The last semi-decent games SW fans got to play were the Starkiller saga in The Force Unleashed 1 and 2 developed by LucasArts and those were released almost six years ago.
The Backstage Occurrences
The inner gossip in the industry seems to point out that after shutting down Visceral Studios, EA started development on a new Star Wars game that kept the basic framework of the project being created by Visceral. The project was codenamed Orca, and it was an open-world game the basic premise is still unknown, but the mechanics of the game seem to point out that player would have to assume the role of a bounty hunter or a shady character-type to explore planets and work with factions from the SW universe. There were expected interactions with both factions of the story, as well as sideliners like the Hutts. Visceral was let go of the project by EA to handle small projects with the Star Wars brand that don’t require extensive amounts of time for development.
What the Future Holds for Star Wars
Not everything seems terrible since Orca hasn’t been entirely scrapped, but the unknown title has not been revealed in any form in the last two years, and EA somehow expects to release it by 2020. As you can imagine this doesn’t have a lot of people happy at Disney since they seem to perceive a negligent treatment of the brand by an experienced publisher (whoever deals with EA should know better, that all we’ll say.) As of right now EA still hasn’t shelved Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The original plan pointed to a holiday season release, but that also seems unlikely. Our humble opinion on this side of the keyboard is that Disney should take a deep breath and figure out what to do with Star Wars on all fronts.
The movies are getting pummeled, even if they are making money. Fan-favorite cartoons are disregarded to make room for new ones that don’t seem to resonate all that great with the fandom. They negated the expanded universe, and that was a big mistake on itself. Last but not least, they hired one of the worst developers to handle their top IP with mediocre games and no strategy. When a succession of hits gets you this bad, it’s time to sit back and rethink your business strategy.