Disney Explains Why It Didn't Rush Into Making An Open-World Star Wars Game

Disney Games executive Sean Shoptaw has shed some more light on Ubisoft's upcoming open-world Star Wars game that's being made by The Division developers at Massive. Speaking to IGN, Shoptaw said Disney intentionally didn't rush into making a big, open-world Star Wars game--despite there being demand for it--because it wanted to wait for the right opportunity to come along.

"We've wanted to do it with the right partner at the right time," Shoptaw said. "I think it's easy for us to want to jump quickly, especially when we know there's demand, but we need to be disciplined as well on when we do these things and who we do them with."

According to a report, EA's Visceral Games was developing an open-world Star Wars game, but it was canceled. Shoptaw said in the interview that Disney was willing to wait for the right opportunity to come along because getting it wrong could spell trouble.

"As much as there's been an ambition internally as much as externally to have an experience like this made, we really wanted it to come at the right time with the right partner," Shoptaw said. "The worst thing we could do is do it wrong, and do it our way that doesn't resonate with fans or doesn't meet that bar. And so we certainly feel like the wait will be worth it. We're super, super excited about where this game is going. I was just on a call actually this morning with the Massive team about it, and could not be more excited about where they're taking this game and the opportunity we have with this experience."

The new Star Wars game at Massive is just one big open-world project that the team is making for Disney, the other being Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which was recently dated for 2022.

EA no longer has the exclusive license for PC and console games set in the Star Wars universe, but the company is continuing to make more games. After Star Wars: Battlefront and its sequel sold more than 33 million copies combined, it's likely another game in that series is coming, while a Jedi Fallen Order sequel seems like an easy business decision too, after the first game sold more than 10 million copies.

EA also runs the mobile game Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, which made more than $900 million by the end of 2019, a figure that has only grown higher since. Additionally, EA and BioWare continue to operate the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, which has generated $1 billion in revenue.

It is still very early days for Massive's Star Wars game, so you shouldn't expect the game to release any time soon.