Visceral’s original Star Wars title (codenamed: ‘Ragtag’) is officially toast.
The top-secret project began life as a third-person action game set in the period between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, while the addition of Amy Hennig, former game director of Uncharted, promised a swashbuckling adventure the likes of which we’ve haven’t seen before. At least within EA’s pool of licensed Star Wars titles.
Then came the big overhaul, during which time EA Vancouver took control of Visceral’s assets and planned to create a vast open world title in the vein of Destiny. Alas, according to Kotaku’s sources, that project has now stalled, and likely won’t see the light of day.
Here’s the official response from EA, courtesy of Kotaku:
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. 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.
And just like that, another promising Star Wars title has fallen off the radar. EA seems pretty committed to reworking those assets into future games – either as DLC or some form of world-building process – though it’s looking increasingly likely that Visceral’s (and EA Vancouver’s) doomed project will remain trapped in the bowels of development hell.
What now? Well, EA appears to have prioritized Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Respawn’s original story in which a young Padawan manages to survive the events of Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. It’s certainly fertile ground for a brand new adventure set in the Star Wars universe; let’s just hope Electronic Arts are as committed as they claim.