A headline like "EA Cancels Another Star Wars Game" feels like they're a dime a dozen these days. I think EA may have cancelled as many Star Wars games as they have closed studios at this point. Here we are again and here EA is with another cancelled EA game on their hands. This time, the development studio has decided to cancel its open-world Star Wars game that EA Vancouver had been working on.
Prior to EA Vancouver working on this title, it was in development from Visceral Games. Of course, EA shut down Visceral Games back in 2017. In fact, when Visceral was working on the game it wasn't an open-world title but rather a more linear action-adventure game that was being directed by Uncharted director Amy Hennig. At this time, the game was codenamed Ragtag. As Visceral was developing the title, EA Vancouver had been assisting on the project. EA Vancouver then took over full developmental duties when EA closed Visceral Games on October 17, 2017.
After EA Vancouver took over, the game was changed to an open-world title. Despite being in development for at least a couple of years now, the game has not been seen publicly in any capacity. As it stands, there is no word on what EA Vancouver will work on now. According to Kotaku, who originally broke this story, the next project for EA Vancouver may be yet another, different, Star Wars project.
Update:
Kotaku has an update to their original story. They were able to pull some additional details about just why this EA Vancouver game was cancelled.According to "people familiar with EA Vancouver's now-cancelled open-world Star Wars game," the project was cancelled because EA's main decision makers want to shift to a smaller project that can be delivered faster.
This project, which was code-named Orca, was very early in development but would involve playing as a scoundrel or bounty hunter who could explore various open-world planets and work with different factions across the Star Wars universe.
When EA’s top decision-makers looked at their road map for the next few years, they decided that they needed something earlier than the planned release date for Orca, according to two people familiar with what happened. So they cancelled Orca in favor of a smaller-scale Star Wars project that’s now aimed for much sooner—likely, late 2020, which also happens to be around the time that I’ve heard next-gen consoles will launch. (Might be a bit earlier; might be a bit later. From what I’ve heard, next-gen plans are definitely still in flux.)
When EA’s top decision-makers looked at their road map for the next few years, they decided that they needed something earlier than the planned release date for Orca, according to two people familiar with what happened. So they cancelled Orca in favor of a smaller-scale Star Wars project that’s now aimed for much sooner—likely, late 2020, which also happens to be around the time that I’ve heard next-gen consoles will launch. (Might be a bit earlier; might be a bit later. From what I’ve heard, next-gen plans are definitely still in flux.)
Schreier's report at Kotaku goes on to say that EA did not lay anybody off with this move.
