Is a new galaxy-spanning "Star Wars" game coming soon? Recently, Electronic Arts posted their search for a lead engineer, and the qualifications seem to indicate that the project is for an open-world game set in George Lucas's creation. EA, the sole game developer with rights to the franchise, described their ideal candidate as someone who could "Lead a team to deliver online features for a Star Wars Open World project."
What will it feature?
Fans of multiplayer RPGs will be happy to hear that this game may be cross-platform, since EA's job description includes a portion that lists one of the responsibilities as being able to "maintain high-traffic services for multi-platform games." A galactic warfare game that can include PS4, Xbox One, and PC players would reach a huge demographic and make for massive servers for whatever EA is planning.
It is too early to tell whether this game will contain a linear storyline or not, but Visceral Games, a division of EA that was shut down in October of 2017, had been working on a Star Wars project called "Ragtag." Visceral, who was responsible for games like "Dead Space," "Dante's Inferno," and "Battlefield Hardline," focused largely on third person games. "Ragtag" had been conceived as the early development of a game set in wake of the event of "Star Wars IV: A New Hope," and it was rumored to have a space pirate theme to it. It is possible that EA may be transferring this concept to a bigger scale.
What should the game avoid?
This would not be the first open-world "Star Wars" game. In fact, it would not even be the first multiplayer open-world game of the franchise. "Star Wars: The Old Republic" was released in 2011 to mixed reviews. Some players loved the storylines of each of the 8 classes, but almost everyone was disappointed by the combat structure of the game. It was a shame too, because the trailers for the game were better than some of the prequels. Hopefully, the combat, both ranged and melee, will be immersive and flowing.
The more pressing issue, however, revolves around the criticism from EA's latest game in a galaxy far far away, "Star Wars Battlefront II." The biggest critique of the game was the glaring issue in unlocking heroes.
In order to play as special characters during matches, players had to originally log around 40 hours to unlock one character. EA eventually lowered the required time by a significant amount since the outpouring of anger from players was so pressing. Needless to say, EA needs to learn from their mistake and make this new game more rational in terms of additional content.
No dates about the release of the game or title have been given yet.