"A Very Unique" Star Wars Experience Is In Development At EA Motive

EA Motive was created in 2015 with ex-Ubisoft Toronto head Jade Raymond leading the studio. Since then, EA Motive has been at work on an unnamed Star Wars title and most recently helped DICE on the development of Star Wars Battlefront 2. In October of last year, however, Raymond left the studio to join Google, with another ex-Ubisoft veteran, former Ubisoft Quebec managing director Patrick Klaus, taking over the role.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Klaus says EA Motive is working on "a very unique Star Wars experience," as well as developing its own IP. Raymond had previously said in an interview with Game Informer that Motive's Star Wars game was planning to use a lot of the material produced by Visceral Games for its Star Wars title, with an added pivot to more "player agency." Visceral was, of course, developing another Star Wars game with Uncharted director Amy Hennig leading the project. EA closed Visceral's doors in October 2017, and Hennig left the company shortly thereafter.

It remains to be seen whether Motive is still using any of the work produced by Visceral. "[The studio's identity] is being built right now," Klaus says. "And we're doing a lot of work internally in order to identify our DNA, who we are, and what we do. We're in the process of communicating that internally and making sure the teams buy into it, that they're fully committed to where we're going and they understand why. And then I think the identity externally gets proven when we release games, and when we release successful games."

EA's Star Wars output has been on the low end since the company signed an exclusive 10-year licencing deal with the franchise back in 2013. DICE has developed two Star Wars Battlefront titles, and Respawn recently released Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, but multiple Star Wars games have been cancelled by EA since 2013, so hopefully Motive's unique Star Wars experience will eventually see the light of day.