Today, news reached our ears of the news that Star Wars video games will all be handled by EA games for the foreseeable future. While this may not be ideal for some and the fact that Star Wars has and will continue to go through changes for a long time to come is unnerving for many, there is some hope for the future of Star Wars in the gaming industry. EA have confirmed that they will task three of the top developers at their disposal with creating quality. These developers are: DICE, BioWare and Visceral Games.
On a blog post, Frank Gibeau had this to say “The EA Studios that will develop these games are some of the most innovative and popular creative teams in the world, and include DICE and Visceral, in addition to the BioWare team… These imaginative teams will make games that may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories. Powering it all will be the Frostbite 3 development engine…” What? This is insane! How will Star Wars fit in to these developers? Here is what could happen (in my dreams).
DICE – Star Wars: Battlefront 3:
Look at Battlefield 4, a polished, action heavy first person shooter which looks to have been lovingly created using DICE’s new engine Frostbite 3. Now imagine that, with lightsabers, science fiction heavy guns and the ability to become a hero/villain on the battlefield for a few moments. Imagine looking up at the sky in the middle of a game of team deathmatch and your jaw dropping in horror at a Star Destroyer looming down to wreak havoc on you all. This sheer amount of emotion and the gigantic set pieces are a perfect match for DICE whose Battlefield games such as Bad Company managed to show a more character based shooter than we have become used to this generation. While Battlefront has not exactly been known for its storyline, this could be a place for DICE to further the game to make it more appealing to all fan bases.
IT’S A TRAP!
Visceral Games – Star Wars 1313:
Here we had a game that was fresh. It was entirely different to what we had seen before from a Star Wars game. There was the promise of great graphics, gameplay and engaging story and characters. We were shown just a brief glimpse at what we may have had. I MEAN JUST LOOK AT IT:
(Thanks to IGN for the video)
But then the game was taken away. LucasArts shut down and poof… gone. But Visceral are a developer that has dealt with third person shooter games in the past. Similarities can be drawn to Dead Space’s weapons and space setting. While the game is unlikely to be scary in the same sense, the movement of the characters and the science fiction elements are certainly ideas that can be used between the two. This is one game that I certainly don’t want to see go unreleased and these are the guys to do it.
BioWare – Anything Old Republic Related:
These guys have been working on the Old Republic for a while now. The game is solid and an interesting take on a Star Wars set MMO, not bad by any stretch, but it pales in comparison to the work done on Knights of the Old Republic. KOTOR was a true Star Wars game and the first role playing game in the franchise. After the first game, Obsidian took over the development duties on Knights of the Old Republic 2. The games helped develop the knowledge of the fans as they were set in the time before the films and they gave players the choice of being a Jedi or a Sith dependent on their preferences within the game and the choices they made. Seeing BioWare return to the franchise that they created would surely be welcome news to those clamoring for more of the same level of quality.
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