Summary
EA has had a rather divisive tenure with theStar Warslicense. After Disney acquired Lucasfilm and closed down LucasArts in 2013, it quickly announced a partnership with EA, granting it exclusive rights to develop and publishStar Warsgames for the next decade. EA’s first trip to a galaxy far, far away (aside fromStar Wars: The Old Republicback in 2011) was with the rebootedStar Wars: Battlefrontin 2015, a game that received a fairly mixed reception.Star Wars: Battlefront 2would follow it two years later, proving to be even more controversial than its predecessor.
But it wasn’t all bad. In 2019, Respawn Entertainment released the now-belovedStar Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which was followed by last year’s critically acclaimed sequel,Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. ThoughEA’s exclusivity rightstechnically ran their course by the end of 2023, the company is still set to make a handful of games for the sci-fi franchise, though it’s just canceled a particularly promising one.
EA’s Star Wars Strategy Raises Some Big Questions
The Cancelation of Respawn’s Star Wars FPS Is Disappointing and a Little Strange
Back in January 2022, EA announced that Respawn was currently developing three separateStar Warsprojects. One of these was the then-untitledStar Wars Jedisequel that becameJedi: Survivor, one was a strategy game being developed by new studio Bit Reactor with Respawn producing, and one was a Respawn-led first-person shooter that hadex-LucasArts Vice President of Development Peter Hirschmannat the helm.
Just a few weeks ago, a report from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson claimed that Respawn’sStar Warsfirst-person shooter would put the player in the Beskar boots of aMandalorian bounty hunter. According to Henderson’s sources, this game would put a strong focus on speed and mobility, with the Mandalorian’s jetpack giving the player plenty of traversal abilities such as horizontal and vertical dashes. This Mandalorian-focused game would also give players access to an iconic arsenal of wrist rockets, rifles, and grappling hooks.
During its latest wave of mass layoffs, however,EA canceled Respawn’sStar Warsfirst-person shooter. While the intricacies of the behind-the-scenes processes aren’t known, it seems fair to say that this feels like a bizarre decision on EA’s part. And while the last season ofThe Mandalorianwas a bit of a disappointment, it’s still an incredibly well-recognized brand, so even if the game didn’t follow Din Djarin directly, the general imagery of a Mandalorian bounty hunter would surely have been enough to get the public interested.
Respawn and Bit Reactor’s Star Wars Strategy Game Is Still Going Ahead
Unfortunately, big companies canceling promising projects is nothing new for the video game industry, though this does seem like a particularly strange case, with EA’sStar Warsstrategy game still going ahead. Asconfirmed by developer Bit Reactoritself in the aftermath of the layoffs, EA’sStar Warsstrategy game is currently unaffected, and while that news is great, it does add a bizarre new wrinkle to the whole situation.
It’s great news thatEA’sStar Warsstrategy gameis still in development, but the cold hard truth is that strategy games, in general, don’t tend to do as well as first-person shooters.
For instance,Civilization 5—widely considered to be one of the best andmost well-known strategy gamesaround—has sold around 8 million copies in its lifetime, whileStar Wars: Battlefront 2, even despite its dismal critical reception, had sold over 9 million copies in just two months. Of course, these games aren’t direct comparisons, with one being from a much bigger franchise and being available on far more platforms, but it’s just an example of a fairly well-known industry trend.
So, EA canceling itsStar Warsfirst-person shooter, from a renowned developer, focusing on an iconic group of characters with instantly recognizable imagery, but deciding to keep its strategy game seems a little strange. Hopefully, this means that EA has faith that Bit Reactor and Respawn can do something truly special with theStar Warslicense.
Star Wars
Star Wars is a multimedia franchise originally created by George Lucas and Lucasfilm Ltd with the 1977 motion picture. The science fiction franchise follows the adventures of characters (both humanoid and alien) in outer space including those who can wield a mystical power known as the Force. Since the release of the original trilogy of movies, the franchise has expanded to include multiple films and branched out to other media like comics, video games, tv shows, theme park attractions, and more. The IP and Lucasfilm were sold to Disney in 2012.
