Your timing is impeccable, EA.
Less than two days ago, EA announced that Visceral Games would be closing. Visceral were working on an as-yet-unnamed single-player Star Wars game, written by industry legend Amy Hennig, at the time. That Star Wars game’s future is unclear at present, but EA are keen to press on with the IP, just in a different guise.
The pivot away from Visceral’s linear, single-player experience – to what people are speculating will more likely be a games-as-a-service type model, like Destiny or The Division – isn’t surprising.
The bigger the game world they can create, and the greater a sense of scope they can achieve (with something like an open world, filled with icons). This makes them more likely to trap players in that game for longer, and ultimately make more money from it (through things like loot boxes, probably).
We know it’s not the team behind Battlefront II’s fault that Visceral Games is being shuttered. And we know that the marketing team at EA probably had no idea what they were doing. But it still stings a bit to release a trailer focusing on the all-new single-player content in a Star Wars game at this precise moment in time.
You have to question whether someone higher-up at EA might have intervened, suggested they hold this one back for a few more days out of respect for Visceral, but with Battlefront II out in less than a month – November 17th, to be precise – the marketing machine must rumble on.
Still – too soon, EA. Too soon.
