It was a sad day when EA decided to scrap Visceral Games. This, in turn, resulted in the cancelation of its third-person action Star Wars game, codenamed “Ragtag.” The game’s early in-game footage looked breathtaking, and with Visceral Games having done Dead Space and Uncharted creator Amy Hennig co-leading the project, a lot of gamers were looking forward to it. In a recent interview, Hennig reveals that the canceled Star Wars game was actually further into development than expected. Too bad we won’t get to see it in its finished state.
“I wish people could have seen more of it because it was a lot farther along than people ever got a glimpse of,” Hennig tells USgamer. “And it was good, you know? But it just didn’t make sense in EA’s business plan, ultimately. Things changed over the course of that time I was there. So you know, what can you do.”
She also talks about the challenges of creating a third-person action game using the Frostbite Engine, the game engine developed by EA DICE.
“So I think Visceral was sort of beset with a lot of challenges,” she revealed. “Even so, we were making a game; people have said it was an Uncharted Star Wars. That’s sort of reductive, but it’s useful because people can kind of visualize something in their head. But what that meant is we obviously had to take the Frostbite Engine, because there was the internal initiative to make sure that everybody was on the same technology, but it was an engine that was made to do first-person shooters not third-person traversal cinematic games. So building all of that third-person platforming and climbing and cover taking and all that stuff into an engine that wasn’t made to do that. We did a lot of foundational work that I think the teams are still benefiting from because it’s a shared engine, but it’s tough when you spend a lot of time doing foundational stuff but then don’t get to go ta-da! [laughs] You know, here’s the game.”
EA as a publishing company has been a sore subject for a lot of gamers since it was the company’s idea to shut down Visceral Games and cancel its Star Wars game. It also received flak for the way it handled Star Wars Battlefront 2’s microtransactions. The other game it is publishing, Anthem, has been getting less-than-stellar reviews, which makes it sad since developer BioWare was at the top of its game with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the Mass Effect trilogy.
So what’s next for EA and Star Wars? Respawn Entertainment is working on bringing a Star Wars game featuring lightsabers. The name of the game is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and it’s going to be set during the time where the Jedi are being hunted. It’s expected to be released in Holiday 2019. So far Respawn has been receiving lots of praises for its newly released battle royale free-to-play game, Apex Legends, which is set in the Titanfall universe.
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