Visceral Games shut down by EA, Amy Hennig's Star Wars game cancelled - LOL new game cancelled too

[Wirdschowerdn]

https://www.ea.com/news/an-update-on-the-visceral-star-wars-project?isLocalized=true

Posted by Patrick Söderlund

Our industry is evolving faster and more dramatically than ever before. The games we want to play and spend time with, the experiences we want to have in those games, and the way we play…all those things are continually changing. So is the way games are made. In this fast-moving space, we are always focused on creating experiences that our players want to play…and today, that means we’re making a significant change with one of our upcoming titles.

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.

This move leads to a few other changes:

A development team from across EA Worldwide Studios will take over development of this game, led by a team from EA Vancouver that has already been working on the project. Our Visceral studio will be ramping down and closing, and we’re in the midst of shifting as many of the team as possible to other projects and teams at EA.

Lastly, while we had originally expected this game to launch late in our fiscal year 2019, we’re now looking at a new timeframe that we will announce in the future.

Bringing new Star Wars games to life for every passionate fan out there is what drives us as creators. It’s what has inspired us to deliver the massive new Star Wars Battlefront II experience launching in just a few weeks. It fuels our live service in Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes. Making games in the extraordinary Star Wars universe is truly a dream for so many of us at EA, and we have so many more experiences to come for players on every platform. We want to take the time to get each game right, to make it unique, to make it amazing.

We look forward to answering more of your questions, and sharing more on our plans and timeline for this new Star Wars experience, in the months to come.

TL;DR

Amy Hennig's Star Wars project moves development to EA Vancouver. Visceral games gets shut down. Game release now TBA. Game may also get horribly dumbed down after bad focus testing feedback.

Also this:



Poor Amy. She was ousted from Naughty Dog and now all that hard work she poured into an original Star wars project gets gutted.

She should return to Crystal and reboot Legacy of Kain.

 

[Nirvash]

I suppose they fell off the deadline for the next movie...

But who cares? Visceral truly died after DS 2.

And all what EA can make from star wars is only more massive fanservice/cinematic/dlc turds.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Fuck EA.

 

[Hellion]

This might be the only meme that becomes relevant again at least once every 1-2 years. The corpses on that mass grave just keep piling up.

 

[Cross]

Did anyone really have high hopes for a Star Wars game burdened both by being an EA game and having to fit into Disney's plans for the rebooted Star Wars universe, led by the writer of Uncharted?

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.polygon.com/2017/10/17/16490960/ea-closing-visceral-games-star-wars-game-delayed

Update: Asked about Amy Hennig’s future at EA, a representative for the company told Polygon, “We’re in discussions with Amy about her next move.”

 

[NullFlow]

Another EA merger, another corpse on the pile of good studios left by those incompetent clowns.

 

[Roguey]

Ideally at least this means no one will be able to make more bad Dead Space sequels (which ended with 2 as far as I'm concerned)

In its current form, it was shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game.

I suppose it's official that this is now a dead genre as far as AAA goes.

 

[Infinitron]

https://kotaku.com/ea-shuts-down-visceral-games-1819623990

UPDATE (3:37pm): In an e-mail to employees obtained by Kotaku, Söderlund offered more details on the Star Wars game, which was codenamed Ragtag:

A development team from across Worldwide Studios will take over development of Ragtag, led by the EA Vancouver team that has already been working on the project. Steve Anthony will lead this team, and we will use much of the work that has been done to date by Visceral – the assets of Ragtag that have already been built will be the foundation of this new game.​

(Steve Anthony is an executive producer at EA.)

It’s safe to presume that the new incarnation of this Star Wars game will involve “games as a service” elements, as has been EA’s mandate for quite some time now.

EA was not clear about the status of longtime Uncharted director Amy Hennig, who joined Visceral to direct this Star Wars game after she left Naughty Dog in early 2014. In an e-mail, an EA spokesperson said: “We are in discussions with Amy about her next move.”

I’d been hearing rumors for quite some time now that Visceral’s Star Warsgame was in trouble, and that studios across EA were brought in to help give it vision and direction. Now, that game is no more.

 

[karoliner]

I enjoyed the first 2 Dead Spaces a lot. But after 3 and that battlefield game, i can't really say i will miss these devs.

 

[Ezekiel]

I'm playing Dead Space 2 off and on. I'm about halfway through. It's alright. I still don't get why these games are so highly regarded. They're not scary at all, they're not especially good shooters and they don't tell interesting stories.

In its current form, it was shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game.

I suppose it's official that this is now a dead genre as far as AAA goes.

That's the thing that bothers me about this. Every game has to be an an open world full of filler content, collecting, crafting and upgrading. I don't like gamers.

 

[LESS T_T]

Get ready for JediUnknwon's Forcegrounds.

 

[Dexter]

Another EA merger, another corpse on the pile of good studios left by those incompetent clowns.

Aside from Dead Space, what mentionable titles even close to "good" did they make?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visceral_Games#Games_developed

 

[Urthor]

So tl;dr

#1 this was meant to be Uncharted gameplay in Star Wars

#2 Naughty Dog weren't idiots when they fired Hennig they were just smart for firing a shitty project manager and ignoring the SJWs

#3 The last game that EA Vancouver made that wasn't an EA sports game was before 2010 iirc so this will be "interesting" results. Kind of reminds me of Creative Assembly doing Alien Isolation as a "wow I'm sick of RTS" projcet

 

[Ezekiel]

Another EA merger, another corpse on the pile of good studios left by those incompetent clowns.

Aside from Dead Space, what mentionable titles even close to "good" did they make?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visceral_Games#Games_developed

I liked Everything or Nothing back when I was a kid and thought auto-aiming was cool.

 

[Leechmonger]

Even the second Dead Space was already getting pretty "been there done that".

 

[Ivan]

Dead Space 2 was the Aliens of the trilogy. I love it

 

[DemonKing]

This was the one rumoured SW project that sounded interesting to me so of course EA had to shaft it...their focus testers are probably all from the accounting team...

 

[HoboForEternity]

And nothing value was lost . . .

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I'm not sure why people hold up Amy Hennig as an emblem of incline. The Uncharted series got better after she got fired - the guys who made The Last of Us and Uncharted 4 were already heavily involved in the previous games including Uncharted 2.

As for this, I'm not surprised at all. Visceral haven't made a good game in years and there were absolutely zero details about the Star Wars game they were making other than the fact they were making one. Claims that it was story-focused, Uncharted-in-Star Wars were just speculation because Hennig was there.

Now some are speculating that EA want to retool it to include multiplayer. I see no reason why that would be the case - likely they're just shit scared that they've had a game in development for years and nothing to show for it - but I wouldn't put it past them. EA do a terrific job of taking a middle-of-the-road franchise and running it into the ground.

 

[Dexter]

Now some are speculating that EA want to retool it to include multiplayer. I see no reason why that would be the case - likely they're just shit scared that they've had a game in development for years and nothing to show for it - but I wouldn't put it past them. EA do a terrific job of taking a middle-of-the-road franchise and running it into the ground.

Remember, EA's game was already a reworked Star Wars 1313 after LucasArts went bellyup: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/star-wars-1313-announced.72796/


This thing has already been in development hell for anywhere between 5-7 years and retooled at least twice.

 

[Cool name]

it was shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game. ... 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 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.

This sounds very much like "open world, shoehorned in co-op/multiplayer focus, games-as-a-service"

Some of the shittiest trends in the industry. Games-as-a-service especially.

 

[karoliner]

Relevant video:

 

[Unkillable Cat]

A year ago Amy Henning calls AAA development "an arms race that is unwinnable" where crunch is still a big problem, and that "we're definitely at the point where something's gotta give".

Obviously something gave away. I wonder if she ever considered that it would be her career.

 

[Infinitron]

Get ready for JediUnknwon's Forcegrounds.

For decades, industry types have periodically claimed that "Single player is dead, soon all games will be multiplayer", only to be proven wrong as new single player games came out that raised the bar and found new audiences.

Even Pete Hines mocked such statements back in 2013: https://www.destructoid.com/bethesda-versus-freemium-multiplayer-sequels-251674.phtml

"Single-player games aren't going anywhere. Bethesda Softworks has been making single-player games for all of our 25+ years in the industry. We're still here, we're still making them, and people are still buying them. Dishonored was single-player and people really loved it, and it sold well. Skyrim was a complete success. A single-player RPG. There's practically a cottage industry dedicated to talking about how that isn't possible or why that won't succeed. Console fans won't get a game like that. Has to have multiplayer of some kind. PC gaming is dead. It's gotta be a shooter. RPGs are a niche. Etc.

"People like fun games. They have games they like to play by themselves, they have games they like to play with others. Every game doesn't have to be all things to all people. And so the Skyrims and Fallout 3s and Bioshock Infinites and Walking Deads of the world aren't going anywhere. Just stop already."

But what if this time they're right? What if there are no more new ideas, no new audiences to be found?