Fans may have to wait a little longer for a new "Star Wars" video game. In a move that surprised a lot of people, Electronic Arts shut down their in-house video game development studio, Visceral Games.
Executive Vice President of EA Patrick Söderlund made the announcement in a blog post. He said that aside from shutting down Visceral Games, they will also be moving the projects that will be left by the studio to other developers.
The move will indefinitely delay the development of the "Star Wars" video game that everyone has been waiting for. They were reportedly working on an action-adventure video game under the original "Star Wars" trilogy. As a result, their "Star Wars" project with the code name "Project Ragtag" will be worked on by video game developers from EA Worldwide Studios, who will be led by a team from EA Vancouver.
Visceral Games gained fame for developing critically and commercially successful video games like the "Dead Space" series and their most recent work, the "Battlefield" spinoff, the "Battlefield Hardline." The studio has been creating and developing games under EA for almost two decades.
There's no exact reason why Visceral Games was shut down but Söderlund provided insight into the still-in-development "Star Wars" game, saying, "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 feedback about what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace."
Insiders also noted that the news of Visceral Games shutting down comes only a few months after EA chose to not showcase the "Ragtag Project" during the press briefing at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) earlier this year.
The EA executive ended his statement by reassuring fans that they are taking the time to make the video game right, unique and amazing and it if it means missing its planned release in 2019, then so be it.
