EA: Visceral's Star Wars Game Not Canceled for Being Single Player

"At the end of the day, this was a creative decision."

By Alex Osborn

The decision to close Visceral Games and refocus the the studio's Star Wars project wasn't made because it was a single-player title, according to Electronic Arts executive vice president Patrick Söderlund.

"This truly isn’t about the death of single-player games—I love single-player, by the way—or story and character-driven games," Söderlund told Kotaku. "Storytelling has always been part of who we are, and single-player games will of course continue."

He went on to note that the publisher's decision to refocus the project also "isn't about needing a game that monetizes in a certain way.... At the end of the day, this was a creative decision. Our job is to give people a deep enough experience and story, and it’s also to push the boundaries forward. We just didn’t think we were getting it quite right."

Earlier this month, EA announced the closure of Visceral and plans to reshape the Amy Hennig-directed Star Wars game into a "broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining central elements of the game to give players a Star Wars adventure of greater depth and breadth to explore."

Kotaku's report also notes that because of the criticism leveled at Star Wars Battlefront for not having a single-player campaign, EA development studio Motive was removed from Visceral's project in favor of working on the campaign for Star Wars Battlefront II. Apparently staff who'd been interviewing to work on Hennig's project were told they didn't have roles there any longer.

The team at Visceral reportedly had about 30 people on the Star Wars project in 2015, with another 40 expected to be added when Battlefield Hardline's DLC was complete. However, that simply wasn't enough staff for the game, with a former Visceral employee telling Kotaku: "We didn't have a plan to make this game without a 160-person team."

Yet, according to a few sources, the studio wasn't allowed to hiring any additional members to join the team. "EA didn’t allow us any more resources," one source told the outlet. "At that point it was hard to even consider doing anything other than the campaign."

Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @alexcosborn.

Let's block ads! (Why?)