A report from last month revealed that EA had cancelled an upcoming Star Wars game that was being developed by Visceral, and in the process also shut the studio down. EA did not get into specifics behind the cancellation, other than saying that they were “listening to feedback” and that they felt that they need to “pivot the design”.
We might now have a better idea of why, according to a report from GamesIndustry.biz who quotes EA’s CFO Blake Jorgensen who spoke at the Credit Suisse 21st Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. According to Jorgensen, it seemed that EA ultimately felt that perhaps the game that was being developed felt too linear.
“And we were trying to build a game that really pushed gameplay to the next level, and as we kept reviewing the game, it continued to look like a style of gaming, a much more linear game, that people don’t like as much today as they did five years ago or 10 years ago.” However all is not lost as Jorgensen stated that EA is looking to salvage as much as they can from the project. He also stated that EA is trying to retain as many of the Visceral staff as possible, and have been shuffling them around the company as much as possible.
That being said, there is a trend these days that seems to focus more on an open world concept rather than a linear approach. Even Nintendo approached The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with something of an open world concept, resulting in what many are calling one of the best games of 2017.