The next big Star Wars game is in trouble

Game development studio Visceral Games is being shut down, its publishing parent EA announced today. Visceral's upcoming Star Wars game will change hands within the EA umbrella.

Visceral, the team behind such games as Dead Space and Battlefield Hardline, is ramping down and closing after nearly 20 years of making games, EA executive vice president Patrick Söderlund announced in a blog post. The Star Wars game project will be shifting directions to meet what he explains as shifts in the consumer marketplace.

Although we didn't know much about Visceral's Star Wars game, we knew it was going to be a single-player action-adventure game that was story-focused and linear, headed by former Uncharted director Amy Hennig.

Now, apparently after listening to feedback and looking at the marketplace, EA feels a new, more open experience would be better for the game.

Our Visceral studio has been developing an action-adventure title set in the Star Wars universe. 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. We will maintain the stunning visuals, authenticity in the Star Wars universe, and focus on bringing a Star Wars story to life.

Importantly, we are shifting the game to be 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.

The project is being handed off to EA Worldwide Studios, and EA is working on keeping on as many Visceral team members as possible across the breadth of EA. The status of the game's director, Hennig, was not mentioned in the blog post.

The game's expected release timing — 2019 — has been indefinitely delayed.