There’s no doubt that the potential for content and development for Star Wars is at an all-time high. With new movie, TV, book, cartoon, and comic announcements being released every other day, the currently known number of games forecasted in this vast universe seems a bit underwhelming. Let’s take a look at what we do know and maybe speculate a bit about what we don’t.
Aside from the continuation of Lego and The Old Republic Online, both of which were started and released before Disney took the reigns and are some of the only pre-Disney Star Wars related projects still being actively endorsed, we’ve had a few highly anticipated projects cancelled, and instead been given a couple of free mobile games, along with underwhelming Battlefront reboot.
What’s next? Currently, the three biggest projects we’ve been made aware of are Dice’s Battlefront 3, EA Vancouver’s untitled project, and Respawn Entertainment’s untitled project, only one of which has an estimated release date of 2020ish, the first two are still TBD.
So let’s break these down by what information we have so far. The most disconcerting factor, in my opinion, is that all three of these games fall under Electronic Arts’ umbrella. In the wake of the gruesome failure that was Battlefront 2, with its lackluster, low stakes campaign and pay-to-win multiplayer mechanics, it’s fair to say that fans aren’t holding their breath for any of these upcoming games, and the reasons not to are already manifesting themselves.
We all remember the announcement and hype that came with 1313, right before Disney’s acquisition and the result thereof. Now, 1313 wasn’t totally scrapped, per se, but it seems that the original content and idea have been shelved, and the game is being redesigned from a story-driven RPG to something supposedly more inclusive of a broader audience. We’ll see…
I don’t have much to say about Battlefront 3 other than that hopefully the old adage “third time’s the charm” rings true in this case. I really, desperately want EA to succeed at this, and I’m sure the majority of fans do, too. Only time will tell.
The game we know the least about so far is the one being developed by EA in collaboration with Respawn, those folks that made Titanfall. EA will likely be focused on overseeing canon continuity of the game, but as they don’t own Respawn like they do Dice and Visceral, they don’t have quite as much impact on the final product, and with the all-star roster of developers being brought to the table on this one, it’s likely we’re going to see an elaborately designed, multiplayer focused game.
Ultimately, the outlook so far is pretty bleak, but I’m still hopeful. I’m hopeful that EA has learned from past hiccups and has reverted back to quality game development. What I personally would like out of a Star Wars game is an infinitely immersive open world like Skyrim, story-driven RPG like nearly anything Bioware has put out, fun and rewarding cooperative play like the first Destiny, and skill-based mechanics and competitive multiplayer without the need or option to pay your way to the top. Deliver this game, EA, and the fans… well, the fans will still complain because we’re endlessly passionate about our Star Wars experience and it must be done correctly, but we don’t even know what that means. Either way, I’ll still probably purchase and play to completion anything that’s released with a Star Wars label on it, because it’s something I can’t seem to get enough of. What are your thoughts on the upcoming star wars games? What would you like to see come to your console from a galaxy far far away? Let’s chat!
Happy husband. Dog lover. Avid Star Wars enthusiast. Sub-par gamer.
