Electronic Arts has reportedly canceled an in-development open-world Star Wars game. EA Vancouver was developing the project, which was announced when EA closed Visceral Games in October 2017. Visceral’s linear Star Wars game was being reworked into the now-canceled EA Vancouver Star Wars game.
Kotaku reports that the company canceled the EA Vancouver Star Wars game earlier this month. According to Kotaku, three people familiar with the company’s activity confirmed the open-world game’s cancellation. EA has not responded to requests for comment, nor has it released any public statement about the EA Vancouver Star Wars game.
EA announced that its Vancouver studio would rework Visceral’s Star Wars game, codenamed “Ragtag” and headed by Uncharted series creator Amy Hennig, when it closed Visceral Games in 2017. The action-adventure game was reworked into an open-world title, with little besides art assets surviving.
While EA Vancouver’s Star Wars game was not shown publicly, the publisher did talk about it when Visceral was closed. At the time the publisher 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.”
EA’s Motive studio, which developed the campaign to 2017’s Star Wars: Battlefront 2, received a new office in Vancouver alongside its original office in Montreal. Motive was assisting development on the Visceral Star Wars title which became the EA Vancouver open-world Star Wars game, but it’s unclear what Motive is up to now.
EA Vancouver, a large multi-team development studio, develops EA’s FIFA and NHL games, alongside other sports games. EA Vancouver will continue developing EA’s annual sports titles, and a different Star Wars game might come from the studio in the future.
EA received exclusive rights to make Star Wars video games for Disney in May 2013. Since then, two Star Wars: Battlefront games have been released—one in 2015 which was marred by a lack of content, and one on 2017 which was marred by overbearing microtransactions—and mobile phone title Galaxy of Heroes. EA-owned Respawn Entertainment is currently developing Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Top image: concept art from Visceral Games’ “Project Ragtag” Star Wars game.
