EA is Closing Down Visceral Games

<p>In a slightly surprising move&comma; EA has announced that the <em>Star Wars <&sol;em>game which Visceral Games was working on and was set for a 2019 release&comma; will now be headed by EA Vancouver&period; With this news&comma; comes the unfortunate announcement that Visceral Games will be shutting their doors as they &&num;8220&semi;ramp down&&num;8221&semi; on production and hand the keys completely over to EA Vancouver&period; This also means that the new <em>Star Wars <&sol;em>game will be delayed to a new date&comma; which will be announced in the future&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I say this news is surprising because of many factors&period; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;ea&period;com&sol;news&sol;an-update-on-the-visceral-star-wars-project&quest;isLocalized&equals;true">In a statement<&sol;a> released by EA&&num;8217&semi;s Patrick Söderlund&comma; he stated that the &&num;8220&semi;<em>way we play &lbrack;games&rsqb;&&num;8230&semi; are continually changing<&sol;em>&&num;8221&semi; and then proceeded to outline that the untitled Visceral project was &&num;8220&semi;<em>shaping up to be a story-based&comma; linear adventure game<&sol;em>&period;&&num;8221&semi; It&&num;8217&semi;s not hard to read into the fact that Visceral was making a narrative-driven game that didn&&num;8217&semi;t allow for as much player interactivity as they wanted&period; They even outright state that they would like &&num;8220&semi;<em>more variety and player agency<&sol;em>&&num;8221&semi; for the game&period; I find this baffling because you would think EA would know that the <em>Star Wars <&sol;em>name is enough to sell copies and people were really excited for what Visceral was offering&period; I was excited&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>That being said&comma; we don&&num;8217&semi;t really have much of an idea of what the game looked like or how it played&period; It sounds like EA&&num;8217&semi;s fear was that it wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t offer much gameplay beyond its story&comma; but I can think of recent games like <em>Horizon&colon; Zero Dawn <&sol;em>that also offered little more than a great narrative&period; But this is all speculation&period; What is most disappointing is that Visceral Games is no more&comma; after having created the <em>Dead Space <&sol;em>titles and some licensed games which I personally enjoyed back in the day &lpar;my nostalgia for <em>The Lord of the Rings&colon; The Third Age <&sol;em>knows no bounds&rpar;&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s always a shame to see a studio disappear&comma; especially one with a pedigree like Visceral&period; Some of the team will be spread out to other EA studios&comma; and I&&num;8217&semi;m sure we&&num;8217&semi;ll see some other members bounce back on their feet in no time&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Were you excited for Visceral&&num;8217&semi;s <em>Star Wars <&sol;em>title&quest; Are you sad to see them go&quest; Let us know in the comments below&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Source&colon; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;ea&period;com&sol;news&sol;an-update-on-the-visceral-star-wars-project&quest;isLocalized&equals;true">EA News<&sol;a><&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;