Single player Star Wars games are a dream we'd be wise to abandon & History tells us why

The recent trouble around Visceral's cancelled Star Wars game and Battlefront 2's poor solo outing are part of a trend.

October brought disconcerting news that Electronic Arts had shut down Visceral Games and “pivoted" the design of its unnamed Star Wars project from "a story-based, linear adventure game" to something different altogether. As a result, the games media and gamers alike started questioning whether there's a future for the ambitious, single player centric, story-driven games in the Star Wars canon. The thing is: such games have been a thing of the past for a few years already. Seven years to be exact.

[Hardiman]

Yep as long as EA is involved you can bet on it!

[gamejediben]

EA is the kiss of death to almost every franchise they own. I disagree vehemently that single player Star Wars games are a thing of the past. I completely lost all interest in Star Wars thanks to the prequel trilogy but a Star Wars game brought me back into the fandom. That game was Knights of the Old Republic. KotoR was so good that plotwise, I actually hold it above most of the films. KotoR made me a fan again in a big way.

I also adored the Rogue Squadron and Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games. Its obvious that EA is incapable of making a good Star Wars game. The licence should go to a great game developer. Can you imagine a Star Wars game by Bethesda, Bioware, Obsidian, CD Projekt Red, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Arkane Studios, Rocksteady or Id software? What about a Star Wars fighting game from Netherrealm Studios? Or a open world RPG from Guerrilla games like Horizon? EA is toxic and should be avoided like the plague. It's such a damn shame that the great Star Wars licence is held hostage by those incompetent fools!

[XiNatsuDragnel]

EA = Killer of fun

[Jinger]

Haven't killed my fun

[Damthatsword]

Good for u! U can continue Supporting the cancer now.

[strayanalog]

I'm going to have to strongly disagree here.

The article points out that out of the decades of Star Wars games only 12 managed to sell a million copies (or more), which says the brand is tired, spoiled even.

Now on a quick glance it seems that most of those titles are from Gens 5 and 6. So, given the time periods, it would be wise to say that single player titles work better.
‎
Given the industry climate today where 1 million seems to mean nothing, this should mean that EA (and any other developer) needs to take a step back and stop shooting for an actual Star Wars movie's gross with huge budgets, but rather an actual video game that's fun. Focus on the basics: what makes it fun? Would I play this? Is there room for multiplayer?‎
As much as EA is to blame for the recent disaster of this IP, Disney is just as much to blame too. They're the ones that signed the license over with, as far as I can tell, no research or know how in the gaming industry. Just because the publisher or developer is one the biggest, doesn't mean they know what they're doing.

So, no, no one needs to give up on this single player dream. Certain people just need to focus on something else a little more earthly instead of having their heads in the heavens thinking about only money and not their reputation or the very IP's rep that should have been handled more carefully.‎

[_-EDMIX-_]

Absolutely agreed

what doesnt even make any sense is why on Earth would they dismiss all future Star Wars games based on past games made by different Developers?

In regards to Quality all of that is up to debate but at the end of the day Disney also handed that license over because they want to make money and like or hate Electronic Arts you cannot disagree that this company has just sold the best selling Star Wars game in history.

Disney had a great reason to hand that publisher that license.

[DarkZane]

Amy Hennig was working on this game. With what Uncharted 4 was gonna be if she had stayed on it, I am pretty sure that Visceral SW game would have turned out badly with her.

[_-EDMIX-_]

I actually think the game would have turned out perfectly fine the biggest problem here is Electronic Arts expectations of some of these games is absolutely unrealistic and astronomical.

Put it this way the Dead Space series clearly did not sell well enough to Warrant the continuation of its existence based on what Electronic Arts was expecting back from it.

But it is still a very high-quality Series so I don't really see any evidence that the Star Wars game that was being worked on was going to be bad for gamers in regards to fun, simply bad for Electronic Arts because it probably was not going to be moving 20 million units like they probably wanted.

There's a huge difference between what Gamers want and clearly what Electronic Arts wants in regards to sales.

Keep in mind it doesn't actually mean that either party are wrong.

[Jinger]

Like Uncharted 4 was better without her. Her ideas were way better

[Mr Marvel]

EA are destroying Star Wars... F**k EA.

[Germaximus]

I loved both Star Wars Force Unleashed games.

[Skuletor]

First one was great, the second was way too short. imo

[ZeekQuattro]

They rushed the second one. I remember they hyped up Boba Fett and Yoda. Both ended up only appearing in cutscenes. lol It had better gameplay than the first but boy did the story and the length of the game take a big hit. The ROTJ DLC was great though.

[bluefox755]

There's more money to be made with multiplayer games, and all of the players involved are all about that money.

[TheColbertinator]

Star Wars KOTOR and Republic Commando were among my favorite Xbox games.

[ZeekQuattro]

I've been playing KOTOR on the Xbox One. Hopefully they and the sequel and Rupublic Commando one day soon. This was the first time I played KOTOR as I skipped the original Xbox and its predecessor.

[Jinger]

7 years isn't that long considering it takes a good 3 to 4 years to make a solid game with a decent sized studio...

[PhoenixUp]

Why can’t anyb else get a license for Lucasarts properties like they can for Marvel?

[Razzer]

Activision's license had to expire for others to get a shot at Marvel games. I'm guessing the same is true for Star Wars. So I don't know why we should "abandon" the hope for SW single player. We just need someone else to get a shot at it.

[chris235]

every article headline that ends with „why“ is not worth the click.

[TheOttomatic91]

U WOT M8?

[Einhander1971]

Give the Star Wars franchise to Naughty dog, or Imsomniac then come back to me. This article is nonsense EA are nonsense, they churn out the same crap hoping we all suck it up!! Oh and the Star Wars games on Snes are brilliant:)

[soulrebel]

Sounds like loser talk

[Artemidorus]

It's odd that something with a huge following for it's story yet EA doesn't want to create a decent single player experience or even a co op one.

[sampsonon]

after Naughty Dog is finished TLoU 2 they should be allowed to make a SW trilogy... can you imagine?

[CrimsonWing69]

F-you, I think timing is where an IP like Star Wars sells, history shows games before the prequels came out but after the prequels the Phantom Menace game sold well, The Jedi Outcast games sold well, Knights of the Old Republic sold well, The Force Unleashed sold well. Now with the resurgence and annual releases of Star Wars movies single player games could absolutely sell well. It also boils down to the developers, don't just do a quick cash grab but I'm pretty sure the Uncharted Star Wars game would've been phenomenal and sold a decent amount.

[r3f1cul]

if BF2 is any indication ... EA HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT PLAYERS WANT! so everything they say probably couldnt be further from the truth... just because you dont have the talent or soul to make a good SP star wars game doesnt mean it CANT be made, big fucking difference ... also they are just struggling with how they can milk you to death with micros in a SP only game without people destroying them after the bf2 debacle ...

[EatCrow]

A thing of the past and yet the old republic mmo has a great singleplayer aspect. And yet force unleashed 1 and kotor games are still great.

[Jmanzare]

Shadows of the empire. Rouge squadron. Kotor