EA Shuts Down Visceral Games, Star Wars Game Moved to EA Vancouver - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 18 October 2017 / 2,979 Views
EA Worldwide Studios vice president Patrick Soderlund announced the company will shut down Visceral Games.
"Our Visceral studio has been developing an action-adventure title set in the Star Wars universe," said Soderlund. "In its current form, it was shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game. Throughout the development process, we have been testing the game concept with players, listening to the feedback about what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace.
"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. We will maintain the stunning visuals, authenticity in the Star Wars universe, and focus on bringing a Star Wars story to life.
"Importantly, we are shifting the game to be a broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining central elements of the game to give players a Star Wars adventure of greater depth and breadth to explore."
This move will lead to some changes. The Star Wars game will now be developed from several EA studios with EA Vancouver taking the lead on it.
"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," he added. "Our Visceral studio will be ramping down and closing, and we’re in the midst of shifting as many of the team as possible to other projects and teams at EA.
"Lastly, while we had originally expected this game to launch late in our fiscal year 2019, we’re now looking at a new timeframe that we will announce in the future.
"Bringing new Star Wars games to life for every passionate fan out there is what drives us as creators. It’s what has inspired us to deliver the massive new Star Wars Battlefront II experience launching in just a few weeks. It fuels our live service in Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes. Making games in the extraordinary Star Wars universe is truly a dream for so many of us at EA, and we have so many more experiences to come for players on every platform. We want to take the time to get each game right, to make it unique, to make it amazing."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
More Articles
So EA wanted another multiplayer game instead of a single player, story driven game, and that was the perfect excuse to disband another studio to work on their cash cows. Classy EA, CLASSY.
EA.. where developers go to die.
It wasn't enough to ruin one of the best new IPs of last gen by making it generic cover based Gears clone with early microtransactions.
It wasn't enough to force them to make a Battlefield spin-off title that was dead on arrival because no one asked for it.
It wasn't enough to force them to join the swath of EA devs flooding the market with Star Wars titles.
They had to kill them.
Between this and their treatment of Titanfall, I'm done with them. Here's hoping the Visceral devs go indie and make the kind of games we always wanted them to create.
Weren’t these guys the dead space developers?? Consider me gutted 🙁
