The temporary development halt the Star Wars game by Visceral Games, which is now being developed by Motive Studios, was not solely attributable to the single-player part, as further background information reveals.
The online magazine Kotaku had the opportunity to learn more about the studio's closure and the project, which apparently was doomed from the start. The studio and its employees were problematic in themselves, with average costs of $16.000 per month per employee, over 50% more than in comparable studios.
However, there were also problems with the game's design, which differed significantly between EA, Visceral Games, and individual employees like Amy Hennig (Uncharted). Even the vision for Star Wars was highly divergent – some felt it wasn't Star Wars enough, while others thought it was still too much like Uncharted. Furthermore, despite considerable creative freedom, the Star Wars license couldn't be fully utilized, and every tiny detail had to be approved by LucasArts, creating further obstacles.
On the technical side, EA insisted on using the Frostbite engine, despite their less-than-ideal experience with it in third-person games. Nevertheless, EA wanted the game to at least rival Uncharted 4, which not only set the bar extremely high but also widened the gap between the two titles. Therefore, external assistance from Motive Studio was planned, but they lacked sufficient resources at the time.
In the meantime, several demos, some of them quite convincing, were created and several milestones were reached, but these only revealed to EA's top management how slowly the project was progressing. The planned release in winter 2018, as well as the implementation of a multiplayer mode, were therefore no longer feasible within the timeframe, which ultimately led to the project's cancellation. You can read the full report here. at Kotaku ...
