On Monday EA (Electronic Arts Inc.) announced that they have obtained a multi-year licensing agreement to develop and publish brand new STAR WARS games that will be based on characters and story lines from the STAR WARS universe.
EA and The Walt Disney Company reached an agreement that allows EA to develop and publish new STAR WARS games across all interactive platforms and will incorporate today’s most popular gaming genres. The Walt Disney company still retains rights to develop new titles within the realms of tablet, mobile, social media and online game categories.
“This agreement demonstrates our commitment to creating quality game experiences that drive the popularity of the Star Wars franchise for years to come,” said John Pleasants, Co-President of Disney Interactive. “Collaborating with one of the world’s premier game developers will allow us to bring an amazing portfolio of new Star Wars titles to our fans around the world.”
Three games studios have already been named to work on developing new STAR WARS games, those studios include: Visceral Games (developers behind the DEAD SPACE franchise), BioWare Studios (developers behind the MASS EFFECT franchise), and DICE (developers behind the BATTLEFIELD franchise).
“Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,” said EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. “The new experiences we create may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories and gameplay.”
Visceral Games and DICE will join BioWare who has already developed licensed STAR WARS games in the past, STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC and STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC, to create new gaming experiences in the world of STAR WARS.
Personally I’m excited to see what games these three teams are going to develop. BioWare has a long history with STAR WARS and have developed some amazing STAR WARS games in the past. KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC is one of my favorite games of all time and I always find myself going back to play it every couple of years.
What games DICE and Visceral are developing could be considered a little bit of a guessing game.
DICE could be developing a new STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT game, which would make sense because DICE develops the BATTLEFIELD franchise and is extremely knowledgeable in the shooting genre. But they could also start fresh and develop something totally new which would be just as exciting in my book.
Visceral is the studio that is hardest to pinpoint what it could be developing. Maybe they picked up STAR WARS 1313 and will finish development on that since it has been halted. I think it’s safe to say that it will revolve around the third-person shooter genre because of Visceral’s history with DEAD SPACE and how well DEAD SPACE’s third-person gameplay is.
I think it would be easy to jump to conclusions after hearing EA is going to be involved with making new STAR WARS games, but I think it’s unwarranted skepticism as of right now. All three studios develop great games, BioWare especially, and I think the STAR WARS name is in good hands with them.
EA comes under a lot of fire in the cyberspace world for decisions it has made in the past, for good reason at times, but to tear down these games before they’ve been built is a little ridiculous. Let’s give this a shot and if three terrible games come out of this agreement then we can tear EA and the lot of them down.
