EA Signs on for Star Wars

EA announced this week a deal with Disney to publish future Star Wars games. As announced the two companies have established a “multi-year exclusive agreement to develop and publish globally under the franchise”.

This will allow DICE and Visceral the production of new games, joining the BioWare team which already develops for the franchise since it’s time with the KOTOR series.

Frank Gibeau, the Labels president at EA, stated that these three studios are already working on games within the Star Wars universe and that “every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe.” He went on to explain that, “Three of our top studios will fulfil that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop for the Star Wars franchise. The new experiences we create may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories and gameplay.”

Interestingly a blog post from the developers confirmed that the new games will run on the Frostbite 3 engine created by DICE and made famous by their destructible environments within the Battlefield series.

It was original bad news earlier this year when LucasArts laid off its staff and suspended their current projects, including the juicy ‘Star Wars 1313’.

All signs are pointing to some good opportunities for designed games and EA are well known for listening to the public. At the moment forums and video game sights are all kicking up for a third KOTOR game, another Battlefront and a rebirth for the creation of 1313. Maybe EA had these three games in their mind when they started mentioning the development studios.

I for one need a decent ending to the ‘Knights of the Old Republic’ Saga…. 

What would you like to see from this new set-up? Have you got any original ideas for a game set in the Star Wars universe? If so sound off in the comments section below.