Apologies for the serious thread necro, but the stuff from a year ago has become somewhat pertinent again, and provides context I think…
In response to the claims earlier this week that EA has decided to cancel yet another Star Wars game in development…
This project, which was code-named Orca, was very early in development but would involve playing as a scoundrel or bounty hunter who could explore various open-world planets and work with different factions across the Star Wars universe. [Source]
…Gary Whitta, the ‘Rogue One’ writer, ripped into EA yesterday after hearing the news:
It has been catastrophically mismanaged. If I were Disney, I’d be fucking furious. I saw a bunch of that game, and it looked terrific. It would have been Star Wars Uncharted. [Source]
And while I think Hammer’s point from last year is still very valid…
…this latest cancellation seems to have ruffled enough feathers among the SW gaming faithful (mostly suggesting that EA are the spawn of Satan and don’t deserve the rights to the franchises’ IP) that the EA suits felt the need (pressure?) to put out an official response:
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.
Pretty much a non-statement there. And very little solace provided to the faithful.
Jason Schreier sums up these thoughts in his subsequent EA’s Troubled Decade of Star Wars Games article saying: “I don’t know the specifics of Disney’s deal with EA, or whether it has any out clauses, or whether there are conversations on either side about bringing it to an end. For years now, fans have expressed desire for the exclusivity deal to go away. Maybe it should have never been made in the first place.”
