Thursday, February 29th 2024

EA Axes Star Wars FPS, Battlefield Single Player Project Reassigned to Criterion

This announcement was shared with EA Entertainment employees by Laura Miele, President of EA Entertainment and Technology: "Hi Everyone, over the past six months, you've heard me talk about aligning our portfolio and organization to deliver on our ambitious growth strategy. One of the essential parts of delivering on our plans is making sure we are listening to our players and investing in the games they want to play. As Andrew noted in his EA Action, the reality of a creative business is that market conditions and players' needs are always changing. We're seeing a rapid player shift toward large open-world games, massive communities, and live services. With that in mind, we have shared the following updates with our teams:"

Respawn:
Respawn's unique ability to connect with players and create exceptional game experiences is unrivaled in entertainment. As we've looked at Respawn's portfolio over the last few months, what's clear is the games our players are most excited about are Jedi and Respawn's rich library of owned brands. Knowing this, we have decided to pivot away from early development on a Star Wars FPS Action game to focus our efforts on new projects based on our owned brands while providing support for existing games. It's always hard to walk away from a project, and this decision is not a reflection of the team's talent, tenacity, or passion they have for the game. Giving fans the next installments of the iconic franchises they want is the definition of blockbuster storytelling and the right place to focus.
Battlefield Studios:
Our vision for Battlefield is ambitious and exciting. The project is making meaningful progress, thanks to the strong leadership of Vince Zampella and Byron Beede and dedicated studios committed to building a Battlefield platform our fans will love. Today, we have the largest Battlefield team in the franchise's history, with passionate people in place across the globe and our studios organized to benefit from both franchise and local leadership.

Marcus Lehto recently made a personal decision to leave the project. To ensure our work continues uninterrupted, we immediately appointed leadership at Criterion to oversee our single-player work. As part of this change, we'll be winding down Ridgeline as a standalone studio in Seattle, with some team members joining Ripple Effect. They'll continue to work with teams across DICE, Ripple, and Criterion as they build the next Battlefield experience.

Mobile:
Mobile continues to be the largest gaming platform and we see strong growth opportunities for EA, and the teams are more focused with a clearer strategy and priorities than ever before. Over the past six months, we have brought together the mobile and HD franchise teams under singular leadership across EA SPORTS FC, Madden NFL, and The Sims. The next step is setting up our standalone mobile portfolio for growth. Over the past few weeks, we have announced we are sunsetting Kim Kardashian Hollywood, Lord of the Rings, Tap Sports Baseball, and F1 Mobile. These games have entertained many people over the years, and it's the right time to focus our time on the remaining games in our portfolio which we believe can grow. We have some great titles, and I'm optimistic about where we can take our significant library of owned IP.

It's not lost on me that these changes are more than words on a page; they directly impact the work you do every day and, in some cases, mean we are eliminating roles and saying goodbye to talented colleagues. I will never lose sight of the human impact of these decisions and know that change and disruption aren't easy. In difficult moments, we must remember how important it is to show up for our players and for each other.
  • Laura
Source: EA News
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8 Comments on EA Axes Star Wars FPS, Battlefield Single Player Project Reassigned to Criterion

#1
Philaphlous
IMHO... Star Wars is a dying brand. It was sort of revived but Disney has done a good job of ruining it with the lack of creativity that the original movies brought.... again, IMO
It'll be interesting to see what Battlefield becomes... I believe BF was also a brand through EA that didn't necessarily sell the way they expected based on prior games... but I could be wrong.
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#2
Onasi
Ah, a single player spin-off of the series mostly known for being a massive MP FPS developed by a studio mostly known for and specialized in racing games. Sounds like EA management alright.
And yes, I know Criterion made Black and assisted on several BF titles, I am mostly just being snarky for the sake of it.
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#3
scottslayer
So now they are developing 2 Star Wars games at the same time instead of 3, great.
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#4
MarsM4N
Respawn: ...Knowing this, we have decided to pivot away from early development on a Star Wars FPS Action game to focus our efforts on new projects based on our owned brands while providing support for existing games...
Not hard to guess what it will be. Titanfall, Apex Legends, Medal of Honour, STAR WARS. :D Would put my money on Titanfall 3.
Battlefield Studios: ...Today, we have the largest Battlefield team in the franchise's history, with passionate people in place across the globe...
Wasted resources if you lack the most valuable ability, competence. ;) Looking at BF2042, they can't even get the fundamentals of a FPS game right. Calling crucial features "legacy features". They have lost all of the former staff because of their dumb leadership, it would be a miracle if they can turn the shipwreck around.
Mobile: ...we have announced we are sunsetting Kim Kardashian Hollywood...
"Kim Kardashian Hollywood", really? :laugh: Mobile "Gaming", what did I expect, lol.
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#5
the54thvoid
Super Intoxicated Moderator
Some posts deleted.

Folks - leave the social commentary to your pub chats.
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#6
mama
This is so much marketing speak and spin. Really hard to read. Just say that it's not proceeding because... [insert reason here].
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#7
Vayra86
Oh man the sadness of big budget entertainment. Im not touching it anymore.
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#8
Totally
"is that market conditions and players' needs are always changing."

What a load of crap, go back to making games and stop chasing trends.

If they'd stop getting high of the smell of their own feces they'd stop telling us what we want and listen and realize what players what really doesn't change. It's paradoxical, but I'm going to gloss over this by saying yes we like having the same thing consistently but at th same time we don't want a hundred sequels (EA/Activision) or the same exact game repackaged into 10 different titles (Ubisoft). Hence why every time something new and novel shows up in the indie creating waves aforementioned examples rush to adapt the idea into or create their own clones by the time they get something out the door interest in the concept has already waned, and everyone has already gone back to what they usually play.
OnasiAnd yes, I know Criterion made Black and assisted on several BF titles, I am mostly just being snarky for the sake of it.
Black sucked, mind numbing is the best thing I could say about it. It felt like a tech demo, or proof of concept that they were working on in-house that got far enough along that they figured they might as well make a full release out of it.
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Dec 21st, 2024 22:45 EST change timezone

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