Visceral Games’ Star Wars is looking “pretty different” under EA Vancouver

After Visceral Games was dissolved, EA handed Amy Hennig’s action-adventure based Star Wars title to EA Vancouver. The publisher’s research pushed the new studio to drop the linear approach in favour of something more replayable and lasting, which Hennig describes as “pretty different” from the original vision.

Hennig’s position at EA has been debated since Visceral Games shut down in October, with her go-to response being that she was “in negotiations.” The video game veteran has since confirmed in an interview with Eurogamer that she hasn’t held a position at EA since January, and has since gone on to work on “all kinds of things” as a result.

“I'm working independently and staying independent. I just started my own small little independent studio and am consulting with some people. I'm hoping to bring some people on board, I would love to have a little company of about six to eight people, 15 at the most, and do some more projects, do some VR stuff – I'm consulting with some VR companies and doing a ton of research because I haven't played a lot to immerse myself in it.”

Of course, this prompts thoughts of what is happening with the Star Wars game, codenamed Ragtag, that suspiciously sounded a lot like Uncharted with its linear structure and light-hearted humour. Hennig states that the project she conceived with her team at Visceral is “on the shelf now,” hinting that it needed more than a simple makeover from EA Vancouver.

“The Vancouver studio is working on something pretty different. It's really not… Y'know, once you go more open world it's such a different game to the one we were making. Everybody loved what we were doing and I'd love to see us resurrect that somehow, but it's complicated,” concludes Hennig.

KitGuru Says: It’s not a surprise that Vancouver’s take on the title would be little more than the borrowing of assets, given EA’s push on replayability, microtransactions and potentially multiplayer. Instead, we will now have to rely on Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars title if Vancouver doesn’t do Ragtag justice. Would you like to have seen Hennig’s Star Wars game see the light of day?

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