Dun-Dun-Dun-Dun-Duh-Duh: EA Gets Star Wars Exclusivity
The more disenfranchised portions of the peanut gallery have spent years calling EA an evil empire and claiming that it's done every horrific act short of blowing up Alderaan with a Death Star, so this feels oddly fitting. It's probably not the headline you were looking for, but it does not lie: EA has officially snapped up rights for all things Star Wars and videogame-y. DICE, Visceral, and BioWare will be doing development honors on various offshoots, apparently. So then, Battlefield: Star Wars - Old Knights Dying In Space (On Ice!) in 3... 2... 1...
Here's the word from publisher itself:
“Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe. Three of our top studios will fulfill that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop for the Star Wars franchise. The new experiences we create may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories and gameplay.”
As of now, EA's not saying whether or not it'll unfreeze LucasArts titles like Star Wars 1313 and Battlefront 3 pseudo-precursor Star Wars: First Assault from the agonizing carbonite that is studio closure. We can hope, of course, but I don't plan on getting my hopes up.
Meanwhile, I've contacted Obsidian about its prospects with that Star Wars pitch I'm never gonna shut up about, so we'll see. Again, fingers crossed, but EA already has The Old Republic to worry about on the role-playing front, and its EA Partners program is widely rumored to have been gobbled up by the layoff monster. So, perhaps not the best prognosis.
Still though, this is something, and things could certainly be far, far worse. At least Disney's not putting all its chips on mobile/social like it once suggested it might. Now we just have to hope both the new movies and games are, you know, good, because - whether we like it or not - we're going to be getting a whole, whole, whole lot more of them.