Even though EA’s exclusivity deal with the Star Wars IP was done, the publisher was still working on projects in a galaxy far, far away. Well, it was. When the company cut 670 jobs, it also canceled a first-person shooter Star Wars game.

We learned via the BBC that Electronic Arts has laid off around 5% of its global workforce. One of the casualties of these cost-cutting measures was the FPS. However, it would appear that the Star Wars game was only in the “early development” stage. 

EA’s CEO, Andrew Wilson, gave employees the bad news in a corporate memo. It’s unclear if this project was the second sequel to Battlefront or a totally new title. Regardless, it sounds like Wilson did not think it had potential:

“We are also sunsetting games and moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry.“

Leadership appears to be shifting the company’s priorities to a tighter group of IPs and possibly live services:

This greater focus allows us to drive creativity, accelerate innovation, and double down on our biggest opportunities — including our owned IP, sports, and massive online communities — to deliver the entertainment players want today and tomorrow.“

However, fans of Jedi Cal Kestis will be happy to hear that Respawn’s games appear to be safe:

“As we’ve looked at Respawn’s portfolio over the last few months, what’s clear is the games our players are most excited about are Jedi and Respawn’s rich library of owned brands.“

Wait, does this mean we may see another Titanfall?! Please!

I think the future of Star Wars will be full of sequels at EA. Though that may not be bad for fans of the company’s two existing series, it means we probably won’t see anything different for a long time.

At least Ubisoft and other developers are producing different games.

[Source: BBC]

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