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EA Shuts Down Visceral Games, Shifting Development On Its Star Wars Game (kotaku.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the no-longer-available dept.

Visceral Games, the studio behind games like Battlefield Hardline and Dead Space, is being shut down by EA. The Star Wars game in development at Visceral will be revamped and moved to a different studio. Kotaku reports: "Our Visceral studio has been developing an action-adventure title set in the Star Wars universe," EA's Patrick Soderlund said in a blog post. "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 the feedback about what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace. It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design." Soderlund added that Visceral will be "ramping down and closing" and that "we're in the midst of shifting as many of the team as possible to other projects and teams at EA." "Lastly," he said, "while we had originally expected this game to launch late in our fiscal year 2019, we're now looking at a new timeframe that we will announce in the future."

13 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Better cancel SWTOR! by cfalcon · · Score: 2

    This kind of thing makes me think that their next step might be to push it to some other studio, give them money, and shut down Star Wars: The Old Republic if it looks like whatever their new vision is might conflict with an existing MMO (not that the new game needs to be an MMO to meet this criteria: anything vaguely close enough would probably count).

    1. Re:Better cancel SWTOR! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Better not!

      I still play it. Have you tried it again recently. You can buy your own bachelor pad for your inn/cantina for XP and there have been many many extra chapters and updates. You can start at level 60 too with the Eternal Empire and choose to side with the republic or empire afterwards.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    2. Re:Better cancel SWTOR! by lgw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A story-based single-player RPG would be hard to shove a cash shop with loot crates into, and that all EA or Ubisoft wants these days. An MMO, though, easy for a cash shop (SWTOR already has one of course).

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  2. it's EA by Z80a · · Score: 4, Funny

    A sacrifice of a studio or two is always required to appease the gods.

  3. Good call, EA. by Leuf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No Star Wars fan would want to come back to and enjoy a story-based linear adventure for a long time to come.

  4. Yeah I played it recentely by aepervius · · Score: 2

    It is still the MMO treadmill BS that most of us are escaping - but combined with the micro transaction most of us abhor - even if you are subbed (I was) it was in your face.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
    1. Re:Yeah I played it recentely by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Unless they changed something since I quit, as a sub the only thing you "had to" buy for real money were cosmetic shit, nothing that influenced gameplay in any way.

      If you really need that scooter in purple that you got in white from some quest, well, that's your problem...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. SW:Battlefront by MrKaos · · Score: 2

    You completely destroyed the gameplay of Battlefront that made it compelling.

    You limited the maps so it was pay pay pay instead of action action action.

    Keep the new graphic engine however go back to the fast moving strategy game that made BF1 and BF2 great in their own right, both still highly playable (if I didn't enjoy EAW so much).

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re:SW:Battlefront by DarthVain · · Score: 2

      Sad.

      I tried out the beta of Battlefront 2 and while I was hopeful and excited, and it was fun for a bit, I soured on it pretty quickly.

      As you mentioned, the trend to micopay the crap out of every new game and suck every dime of profit they can siphon from a release is brutal. I refuse to keep paying to play a game I've already bought.

      Luigi: "Hey, it'd be a real shame if something were to happen to your game there. Might be some of your opponents will all get perks that will make them destroy you every game. That would be a real shame I says. You could pay me a small "fee" even now and again and we can protect you from that happening, if you take my meaning..."

      Second, which isn't EA's fault, but rather the industry as a whole, is the dumbing down of what could have been a really GREAT game because of cross development for consoles and their limited use of controllers. Specifically talking about the starfighter multiplayer mode. I remember with great nostalgia the old Xwing VS Tie fighter, and have been waiting for nigh 20 years for something to come along and basically give me the exact same thing, but with updated graphics etc... But no, we get this thing which basically has 3 buttons of functionality.

      Heck if you took the old LucusArts Dark Knight 2 and mashed it together with Xwing VS Tie fighter, you would get a better product (not not visually) than what Battlefront 2 is right now. Sad.

  6. Design by committee? by The+Cynical+Critic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now is it just me, or does the talk about focus group testing sound an awful lot like the publisher decided to convert the game from something designed by professionals to something designed by committee?

    I mean the game was being directed by Amy Henning of Uncharted fame and seemed to be much in the same vein as the games she'd worked on before being ousted from Naughty Dog so it's pretty clear that EA's management was originally looking to make a Star Wars themed Uncharted game, but it seems like they decided to go with what the committee said instead.

    --
    "Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
  7. Story driven, single player games... by sad_ · · Score: 2

    ... are dead in the eyes of EA.
    That is what i make out of this.

    --
    On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
  8. Re:Moving game in development to FPS by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    Sorry, to me it sounds more like

    "We noticed with Mass Effect that people get too pissed when we charge 60 for a game and another 60 so they can actually finish it, well, ok, we don't give a fuck whether they're pissed, but they went and didn't even pay those other 60, and we do care about that! They might have paid if the story was better, but for that, we'd actually have to hire good story writers.

    So we looked and noticed that people are dumb enough to keep buying new weapons for the FPS titles we sell, at least when they have online content and they get left in the dust if they don't keep buying new guns. Sure, it also pisses them off, but like we said before, we don't care, what matters is that they DO keep paying here. And there's not even a need to create any content, just reskin the weapon (i.e. take the old skin and give it a new color scheme), give it better stats and sell it for 5 bucks".

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  9. Re:EA is a great place to work... by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    They added bondage now?

    So that's what that "new plan to increase employee retention" was about.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.