Electronic Arts recently announced their intention to cancel the as yet unnamed Star Wars open world game project initially started by Visceral Games in 2013 prior to the studio’s final closure, the project also received a major overhaul during 2017.
When contacted for a commentary the EA spokesperson failed to provide an outright confirmation of the cancellation of the project, which was under development in EA’s Vancouver studio. Instead, the spokesperson issued a noncommittal statement regarding the game’s current and future development. The spokesperson went on to praise the work done by their Vancouver team further stating the team’s work continues and would evolve into possible future Star Wars games and content. He also said they were fully committed to creating additional Star Wars games and that they were extremely excited about Respawn’s new release Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, inferring they would share more about their new projects when it suits them.
EA Motive’s studio head and creative director Amy Henning originally in charge of the project’s oversight, which at one stage of its development went under the codename “Ragtag”, together with Visceral Games developer Jade Raymond initially described the untitled Star Wars games project described the new game as a linear story-based adventure, much in the style of Uncharted, Naughty Dog’s adventure series one of Henning’s previous works.
During October 2017, EA announced its intention to dismantle Visceral Games, alongside their intention to assimilate the studio’s staff alongside their Star Wars Ragtag project by distributing the staff amongst other in-house studios. For the development of the Star Wars Ragtag project fell into the hands of EA’s Vancouver studio who then subsequently took the project in a completely new direction.
According to Patrick Söderlund, ex-chief design officer at EA, the team imagined a new vision for the project which required it change from its original linear adventure to instead provide a broader experience which would allow for greater variety which offered greater player freedom, they achieve this by reinventing central facets of the game to provide players with a new Star Wars adventure imbued with greater breadth and depth for players to explore.
Henning, Söderlund, and Raymond have since all left their positions at Electronic Arts, and while the explosive popularity of eSports caused video gaming to burst onto the professional scene. It fast became a firm favourite amongst leading online sportsbook affiliates such as https://betenemy.com/en/ due to their dedication in providing a safe, secure gateway for avid gamers new to online sportsbooks. This is especially prudent for those that wish to find a suitable online betting partner to place a wager or two on teams and players they favour to win or do well.
After its reimagining and subsequent overhaul Star Wars project Ragtag have since received a new moniker and now goes under the codename Orca the storyline of which currently centres around the adventures of a scoundrel bounty hunter who spends his time exploring amongst any number of open-world planets while working in co-operation with the various unique factions he runs across in the expansive Star Wars universe.
Around the same time as the cancellation announcement speculation arose, strongly suggesting the development of a separate, linear, smaller scale Star Wars project once again Vancouver studio based, suggested to possibly arrive sometime during 2020, which supports EA’s earlier statement we mentioned above.
Since the signing of their 2013 agreement with Disney to develop games for the Star Wars franchise, EA stated the company would commit developers BioWare, Visceral, and DICE to create new titles for the franchise.
To date, the games provider only managed to deliver a tiny fraction of games in fulfilment of their commitment, releasing just two Star Wars Battlefront titles by DICE, while BioWare contributed with additional releases for the existing Star Wars: The Old Republic and Capital Games added a mobile release titled Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. Similarly, Respawn Entertainment, developers of Titanfall, is currently still in the development stage with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
