Thats no coincidenceFun story, the original design for the villain of Mirrors Edge Catalyst was incredibly similar to him. They changed it afterwards.
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EA shuts down Visceral, moves Star Wars game to EA Vancouver/others
- Thread starter DKHF
- Start date
Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition on PS4 is a real good game to play while you're waiting for Divinity Original Sin 2 (one of the best games if not the best game I've played in years) to hit consoles. If you don't mind turn based combat it's a fantastic recommendation although the newest game is just an improvement in every single way.
Papacheeks
Banned
No, it was a new IP with a new character set in the star wars universe. It was going to be akin to uncharted meets starwars with they way amy henig described it.
Sure and all the creative talent would have said "sure destroy our creation with your bullshit, we will happily accept all the changes you suggest". EA probably tried, the leads at Visceral said a variant of "We know what to do with the talent at our studio" and EA said "What studio?"
TheVoidDragon
Member
There isn't anything to directly imply it was turning out to be a bad game, though. Their whole statement basically revolves around this being a change because their 'testing' and market trends suggested a GaaS-based game would make them more money than a linear game would.
They just cancelled the game and fired everyone that was responsible for it. Id say that is a pretty good indication the project was not going very well.
Absoludacrous
Member
Pretty safe bet EA never really wanted Pandemic anyway, they just came along with Bioware. So they were on an unsurprisingly short leash. They were also one of the studios defining B-tier games with stuff like Mercenaries/Saboteur, so even given more rope I doubt they would have survived.
Not to say EA didn't set them up to fail, but that's the nature of publishing AAA games in this era.
In the article, Jason wrote
"Id been hearing rumors for quite some time now that Viscerals Star Wars game was in trouble, and that studios across EA were brought in to help give it vision and direction."
Seems more like they are trying to avoid defamation suits / end things on somewhat professional terms rather than getting into a protracted mud slinging contest. But if it was just business design there's not much need to can the entire studio.
I'm still so excited for the new possibilities. Curious what era they'll tackle, with all the buzz about new star wars films
TheVoidDragon
Member
No, i don't think it is really, not when it's EA. Shutting down studios is something they've done so many times for all sorts of absurd reasons, this was something pretty expected to eventually happen given Visceral's most recent games. If this was one of their studios that had been doing well recently then sure, it would indicate things were going badly, but the last few games made by Visceral did not do well at all because of EA's meddling and overly high expectations.
They've been close to being shut down for a while now, EA deciding it's going to cancel the game and start again would have meant Visceral then weren't working on anything, and considering they were already that close to being shut down in the first place, they've finally had a reason to do it. Re-reading their statement, it does not come across as "Visceral's game was doing badly, so we're changing it and firing them", but instead "We're changing Visceral's game because of GaaS, so we're firing them"; the explanation for the game changes comes first, then it says:
Implying the games change in direction caused that closing down, not necessarily the other way around. I could be wrong but that's just how their statement reads to me.
EA was never going to come out and say the game was shaping up poorly no high-profile cancellation ever does that, so I am not sure why people are insistent on taking a PR statement at face value.
If EA wanted a broader, bigger scope Star Wars game there was no reason to cancel this one. They could have just had EA Vancouver start another game. The fact that they are shuttering the studio speaks to both Viscerals inconsistency for the past 5-7 years as well as the state of their Star Wars game.
TheVoidDragon
Member
They did that with the cancelled C&C Generals 2; admitted that what they had done so far was not good enough for the series and that their decision to move away from the campaign-based game to multiplayer-only was wrong.
https://www.polygon.com/2013/10/29/5043244/ea-cancels-free-to-play-command-and-conquer
They said the same with Tiberium and how that wasn't good enough quality:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/10/ea-cancels-cc-fps-tiberium/
So they have done it in the past.
anothertech
Member
WTF EA.
Those games were not meant to be the basis for a follow up project though. Like, its kinda hard for them to come out and say that Visceral Star Wars was poor if they are simultaneously claiming that development of it is going to continue at EA Vancouver. At the same time, its hard to assume the game was in great shape if everyone working on it is getting handed their walking papers. Its not like Vancouver is some massively more qualified studio that will definitely make a better game.
meanspartan
Member
Why the FUCK do they keep falling for it?
Respawn, are you listening? You're probably boned.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
@zsynqx, they'll loot-box-the-shit-out-of-it now so it doesn't really matter it it's cancelled or not. It's like:
TheVoidDragon
Member
What, how is it hard to do that? That seems like something that would be easier; "Some parts of the game weren't living up to our quality expectations, so we're changing those parts and having our other studio work on it to ensure we provide you with the best experience". If quality was the reason than something along those lines would surely look better than what was basically "we're changing it to follow market trends to get more money".
What other thread?
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
Keep in mind we don't know if Titanfall would have been possible without EA's money and influence.
It's a shame the way things turned out, but I'm glad to see you're doing well.
Sorry, I meant I'd just posted the same thing in the Polygon thread (about AAA single player games)
Thought it would be relevant in here as well.
Rastafarian42
Member
Hopefully Stig Asmussen's Star Wars game at Respawn isn't cancelled either.
MisterAnderson
Member
FUCK EA
#Soon
Keep in mind that this PR statement is meant to calm down upset and angry shareholders just as much as it is meant to placate gamers. "Don't worry about this huge delay, we're going to make a game with even broader appeal to make up for lost revenue." That's the reason for the asides about market research and current trends. Admitting that the game was in a poor state is tantamount to admitting mismanagement, which is probably not going to inspire investor confidence.
Kotaku gets it:
Jason Schreier‏: I feel like I should clarify that despite today's Hot Takes, Visceral's game was not canned b/c it was single-player (from what I've heard)
Andrew Cannon: So the EA exec makes a weird statement then...why?
Jason Schreier: Because investors don't like hearing "the project was a mess"
I would additionally note that this is not the Richitello-era of EA, where one might expect some kind of humble mea cupla on an aborted project. Nor is this some PC-only F2P Command & Conquer game that was going to be shuffled off to the increasingly small audience for RTS games.....nobody really cares about small potatoes like that. Visceral Star Wars was meant one of the crown jewels of their portfolio, so when it turns out that something's gone horribly wrong with it nobody is going to want to fall on the sword.
Callibretto
Member
Bioware will be busy making Anthem 2 by that point.
johannesbergcrantz
Member
On second thought, the project might have been going really really bad. If this is indeed the case its not necessarily something you want to communicate to the public. Hope there will be some inside information.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
Had Pandemic survived to release Mercenaries 3, I honestly think they'd be around today.
Mercenaries 3 would have been a much more solid game than 2 and had EA imposed DLC and microtransactions all over it after their disappointment with 2, thats actually a decent game to do so on.
And within about 2 years EA gets the Star Wars license and Battlefront is back where it belongs.
(Surprisingly Ghost Recon Wildlands is nearly exactly what I would have expected from Mercenaries 3.)
There's nothing to infer it was a good game either. A 10 second teaser shot ain't shit, really.
I'd say EA is trying to avoid another Mass Effect: Andomeda situation.
EA: "Challenge accepted."
GraveRobberX
Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
You cant spell CANCER with out an E or A
brickarts295
Member
I thought one of the main reasons for the fall of Padenmic had to do with the fact that they couldn't make The Dark Knight videogame on time.
I thought investors only care if FIFA and Madden underperform?
LegendofJoe
Member
EA is a terrible company. I'll never forgive LucasArts for selling exclusivity to them.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
That definitely killed the Australian Pandemic team, and yeah they were at fault there.
from redesigning the game from linear to open world and then deciding to go with The Saboteur's engine.
That game has been in development for what, 4-4,5 years now? And they had nothing to show for it, which kind of indicates that the project was in trouble. Its a shitty move that Visceral has been shut down now, but I wont jump on the EA is the cancer of the industry bandwagon, since we barely know anything about the state that the game was in, besides the pr message meant for stakeholders and not consumers.
Hopefully the employees find their way to different studios, saw that Respawn already tweeted about them looking for new employees.
Hopefully the employees find their way to different studios, saw that Respawn already tweeted about them looking for new employees.
That reads frighteningly close to the claims made about Uncharter 4 under Hennig as well. What... happened?
Yeah, could be lots of factors out of Amys control why this game couldnt come to fruitation but this wont look good at all on her resumé sadly.
SneakersSO
Member
That reads frighteningly close to the claims made about Uncharter 4 under Hennig as well. What... happened?
Some of the industry's best creators may not be its best project managers/directors. Ken Levine & Bioshock Infinite famously proved that.
Affeinvasion
Member
The odds of getting a Star wars game that isn't a cookie cutter shooter are approximately 3720 to 1.
TheSpaceBetween
Member
That'd be two in a row for Stig. No reason to believe it is though.
TheSpaceBetween
Member
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