A few years ago Electronic Arts signed a deal with Disney giving them exclusive rights to produce and publish Star Wars games for 10 years. They are a prolific publisher so it was plain to anyone paying close attention that a wave of games would be coming quickly following the announcement. That oncoming wave has officially crested and anyone watching today’s EA Play should be running for cover.
EA has contracted with a number of different developers to produce a wide slate of games across a variety of genres and platforms. Take a look below for the projects in progress.
Amy Hennig/Visceral
When Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog we knew it had to mean big things. She is the woman responsible for the Uncharted series and is a master at developing interesting characters and telling stories through action games.
EA has confirmed that her game is currently planned for release in 2018 and will feature a new adventure, a new story, and new characters. When you consider the depth and breadth of the Star Wars universe this could be just about anything and I am super excited to see it.
The speculation machine is already working overtime I am sure. Here’s hoping that the Visceral PR team is ready for the scrutiny that Star Wars fans are used to applying every word in every press release.
Respawn
They hadn’t even finished work on TitanFall 2 when a press release went out stating that they would be making a third person action game set in the Star Wars universe. Today we got confirmation that their new game will take place in a whole new timeline.
I’m not sure why they chose the word “timeline,” but that could have been awkward word choice, or it could carry huge implications about the game and where/when it takes place.
DICE/Motive
Star Wars Battlefront has been insanely popular. It sold a reported 14 million copies over the last holiday season in spite of some average to middling review scores based on its content. The reality is that a casual shooter targeted at Star Wars is almost guaranteed to be a success.
EA confirmed that a followup to the wildly successful game will launch in 2017 and will include much requested new content. The only two pieces of content that I have seen regularly requested are a single player campaign and content regarding the new movies. If they put that into a new game alongside the standard iterative upgrades that normally follow sequels, I think we’ll have an even bigger success story on our hands.
Capital Games
They have been toiling away at their small studio working on the mobile game Star Wars – Galaxy of Heroes. They were shown off on stage as part of EA’s suite of upcoming Star Wars games so it appears that work will continue on the title into the future.
BioWare
BioWare has been working on The Old Republic for a few years now and shows no signs of slowing down. The MMORPG was a mild success when it involved a monthly fee, but once it went free to play it began to grow. There have been several expansions to the game so far, so it stands to reason there will be more. This is especially true when you consider the exploding popularity of Star Wars in general.
We still don’t have details for all of the games, and likely won’t for a few years, but it is very exciting to see this much energy being pushed into the franchise. Star Wars fans have had a rough time of things in the past. Its good to see they are having their day again.
