EA’s new Star Wars game from Visceral will not be releasing any time soon. This news comes from the EA financial report call that took place yesterday. A transcript of the call can be read online .
While there’s some good information in that entire transcript, the part we’re going to focus on is a question by Drew Crum, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. Crum asked how EA was planning on limiting their SKUs going forward. The response from Blake Jorgensen, EA’s CFO, reveals the Star Wars game’s future.
“...[W]e are obviously announcing that we are investing in some action-based SKUs by bringing people like Jade Raymond and Amy Henning into our organization to help build those,” Jorgensen said on the call. “And those are obviously a few years out in our SKU plan.”
This news shouldn’t be all that surprising to those who know how the game development cycle works. The last update we heard on the Amy Hennig-led Star Wars game came from job postings found on EA’s website. If Visceral is still hiring developers for their game, development probably isn’t that far along. This means that we can still expect another year or two before we start to get real, concrete information.
According to the post, which has since been taken offline, the new designer must be ready for "Embracing and contributing to the project vision in areas of hero control/mechanics, AI behaviors, combat/weapons, class design, skills/progression, enemy design, story, and boss encounters." Ignoring the pretty obvious video game tropes like the boss fights and AI behavior, it seems Visceral is looking for someone who knows how to do classes and skills. Additionally, a bullet point further down in the posting makes reference to the ideal candidate having experience making an in-game economy.
Taking these quotes from the job description, it seems this new Star Wars game will likely be an RPG of some sort. Players seem like they will be able to make a custom character, and outfit that character with the skills, weapons, and gear that they want. Players can then use this character to fight bosses, buy and sell things in markets, and maybe even explore the galaxy (depending on your interpretation of "navigation mechanics."
So what do you think? Are you excited to find out more about this new Star Wars game? Are you sad to know the release date is still probably more than a year away? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
