Visceral's now-defunct version of a Star Wars game would have a heist story with a focus on "scoundrels in space...

>Visceral's now-defunct version of a Star Wars game would have a heist story with a focus on "scoundrels in space," according to a new report.

>Kotaku's new report on the production and eventual shutdown of both Visceral Games and its untitled Star Wars project, codenamed Ragtag, delves into vision for gameplay and story director Amy Hennig and the studio attempted to create. According to the report, which involved the input of nearly a dozen former Visceral employees, the game would have followed Dodger, a "'cracked mirror version' of Han Solo" in a story of crime families, heists, and more.

>Dodger would have been joined by a number of other scoundrels in the third-person action title, including a gunslinger named Robie, a mob boss' daughter named Oona, and Buck, who would have acted like a mentor to this band of misfits. The story, which co-writer Todd Stashwick recently commented on, took place between the original 1978 film and The Empire Strikes Back, with a focus on the impact of Alderaan's decimation.

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youtube.com/watch?v=sg29Sa6QFes
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Nothing in any form of media with "Star Wars" on it was ever good

(Cont)
>According to the report, EA execs wanted the project to be somewhat distinguishable from Hennig's last franchise, Naughty Dog's Uncharted, when it came to gameplay. The game reportedly would have let players control several members of this team, with an emphasis on sabotaging environments so that enemies could be distracted in non-lethal ways. An example of the Death Star and its crew of Stormtroopers was used to convey the team's reported plans.

>One Stormtrooper was on a command unit, moving boxes around. Some guys would be droids. It was supposed to be set up so it was all real, and it felt like they had jobs to do," one source told Kotaku. Players would be able to toy with the emotions of a Stormtrooper, instilling fear or confusion in them based on actions in the world.

>The report also suggests that EA "demanded" a multiplayer function be incorporated into the project on top of the single player campaign. It reportedly would have featured space combat that pulled inspiration from Yuma, a smaller, canceled project within Visceral that featured Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag-esque pirate gameplay in space.

FUUUUUCK

>Hennig reportedly had little interest in diving into some of the most recognizable aspects of Star Wars canon, like the Jedi, lightsabers, and the Force. According to the report, EA was unhappy with the lack of recognizable elements and characters in what Visceral was building.

>And as for actually implementing those gameplay ideas, progress was reportedly very slow on Ragtag. Kotaku reports that a traversal system had been made for Dodger and his squadmates. The team reportedly put plenty of time into the brief glimpse of the game shown in 2016, down to the precise movements of where Dodger placed his hands, but one source told Kotaku that core gameplay like shooting or actual environments hadn't yet been determined.

>"We don’t have a single environment for Dodger to exist in... How do you build a system if you don’t know what your average area is gonna be," the source told Kotaku.

>The project's slow progress caused EA to reportedly bring EA Vancouver, the studio now in charge of leading a refocused version of the game, into production in late 2016. And though reportedly progress was made in 2017, and Ragtag demos featuring am AT-ST chase, a Tatooine shootout, and a descent into Jabba’s palace, issues like an overt similarity to Uncharted games and a lack of a key innovation the team could implement reportedly led to the cancellation.

>"We will always look at every way we can keep working on the ideas, and we did a lot of that here. We supported the team and their creative process, and we tried a lot of things," EA executive president Patrick Soderlund told Kotaku. "But at some point, you have to be honest with yourselves, and realize that we’re not going to be able to get to where we want to be."

>The decision to close Visceral Games and refocus the studio's Star Wars project wasn't made because it was a single-player title, according to Electronic Arts executive vice president Patrick Söderlund.

>"This truly isn’t about the death of single-player games—I love single-player, by the way—or story and character-driven games," Söderlund told Kotaku. "Storytelling has always been part of who we are, and single-player games will of course continue.

>He went on to note that the publisher's decision to refocus the project also "isn't about needing a game that monetizes in a certain way."

>Söderlund continued: "At the end of the day, this was a creative decision. Our job is to give people a deep enough experience and story, and it's also to push the boundaries forward. We just didn’t think we were getting it quite right."

What a shame it seems SW is doomed to only get games based around pew-pew blasters or lightsaber battles that were already done better in the Jedi Knight series.

A game about scoundrels in space would have been dope as fuck but that was too original for EA.

>Earlier this month, EA announced the closure of Visceral and plans to reshape the Amy Hennig-directed Star Wars game into a "broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining central elements of the game to give players a Star Wars adventure of greater depth and breadth to explore."

>Kotaku's report also notes that because of the criticism leveled at Star Wars Battlefront for not having a single-player campaign, EA development studio Motive was removed from Visceral's project in favor of working on the campaign for Star Wars Battlefront II. Apparently staff who'd been interviewing to work on Hennig's project were told they didn't have roles there any longer.

>The team at Visceral reportedly had about 30 people on the Star Wars project in 2015, with another 40 expected to be added when Battlefield Hardline's DLC was complete. However, that simply wasn't enough staff for the game, with a former Visceral employee telling Kotaku: "We didn't have a plan to make this game without a 160-person team."

All these assets are going to be ported over to serve as Battlefront 2 maps

EA does it again

(Last one)

>Yet, according to a few sources, the studio wasn't allowed to hire any additional members to join the team. "EA didn’t allow us any more resources," one source told the outlet. "At that point it was hard to even consider doing anything other than the campaign."

TL;DR: Fuck EA

Considering most citizens in SW universe dont believe uin the force this would haave been an interesting approach to a SW game.
Fuck EA.

we are living in the worst Star Wars timeline

I wish we'd get another Jedi Knight game, or some kind of reboot.

for video games, maybe, the movies are pretty good unless you're a prequelbabby or Sup Forums

>le indie hipster

Kill yourself

>disney will only make shitty star wars movies
>ea will only make shitty star wars games
I want lucas to come back

fucking EA
they will always be trash
always

I don't, EA will just fuck it up like they already did with Battlefront.

Just let the poor game rest in peace instead of bringing back an abomination.

So basically EA wanted the players to be like
"I SAW LIGHTSABERS AND I CLAPPED"

Why can't shit be their own thing yet in the same universe. Only sort of media that did this right in the past decade was BladeRunner 2049.

>EA was unhappy with the lack of recognizable elements and characters in what Visceral was building.

Fuck them holy shit. I'm so pissed I already bought battlefront2. Fuck.

>Episode 7 even remotely close to a good movie
Yeah naw, star wars is dead and disney have allowed JJ and EA to rape it's corpse for a few bucks.

So, they basically pulled a Bethesda? Nice to see that corporate scum love to faltter each other in bleeding their devs dry.

>we don't hate single player games even though we cancel them and ruin franchises with multiplayer and co-op

>Nu movies
>good

NONONOONONONNONONNONO
HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHA

>the movies are pretty good unless you're a prequelbabby or Sup Forums

Absolutely not no. Not on any level.

>Luke, the son of the chosen one, after training with yoda tries a jedi mind trick and fails
>rey, who hours earlier found out the force was actually real, tries an jedi mind trick and has no problem at all

>Takes an entire mon calamari fleet in addition to everything the rebels have to hold off the death start in Return
>8 x-wings blow up star killer base

>Rey can speak wookie
>Rey can speak droid

youtube.com/watch?v=sg29Sa6QFes

Fuck you.

> EA was unhappy with the lack of recognizable elements

Very cool, very cool

>Force Awakens was just a rehash of New Hope, ruins all of the classic character's arcs from the OT
>Rogue One is the most boring Star Wars to date
>EU is thrown in the trash
>nothing but pointless cash-grab spin-offs and sequels for the future
Nah, the other user is right. This is the worst Star Wars timeline.

Rey is such a Mary sue

>issac's face

He's seen it all man. Also you can archive the article guys. You can stop being fags.

>game takes place between Episode IV and V
>EA is upset that there are no Jedi
I mean, did they watch the fucking movies? Did they see Rogue One? What the fuck were they expecting?

Fuck, first that Bounty Hunting one on Coruscant, then this? EA are such fucking goobers.

The new trilogy is just rehashing the old one

>luke was the galaxy's biggest fucking chad in the EU, took no shit and built his own jedi academy with his own teachings
>disney luke is a massive fucking failure and coward who hides on a planet and apparently "scared" of some mary sues power
death after episode 3 would have been a mercy for star wars

Disney cancelled 1313, not EA. But fuck both regardless, especially Disney for cancelling the game and giving the Star Wars video game rights to EA.

>Our job is to give people a deep enough experience and story, and it's also to push the boundaries forward
How many layers of irony is this fucker on ?

I'm not sure I have an appropriate reaction pic for this. Fuck EA.

Do you have something you wan to say to me, Anons?

The game sounds like it would have been amazing, a slow paced strategic heist game in the star wars universe is really an interesting and unique take on the licence. It doesn't sound too close to uncharted to me, uncharted is more of a straight up cover shooter. I'm sure the new one will be generic corporate garbage now that they put their lackey in charge of the project. Also I don't believe that executive saying that this wasn't at all about single-player, that was pure bullshit. The amount of micro-transaction money they can make in a multiplayer game is exponentially greater and they will not ignore that for a second.

>uncharted in space
Hennig is a hack

>EA was unhappy with the lack of recognizable elements

AAAAAAAAAAAA
What the fuck is the point in having a universe with interesting characters if the games are always going to be about the same shit everyone has already seen?

sorry georgie

>another Han Solo-like protagonist like Dash and Kyle
>original 1978 film (quality kotaku journalism, it came out in 1977)
>fucking laughable nuStar Wars alien designs as seen here
>Team can't make anything not like Uncharted but also can't be as creative as they want due to EA's demands

Seems like both parties are at fault desu. Everyone always acts like they want something more than lightsabers and the force, but the best Star Wars vidya series, Dark Forces, only got better when it included lightsabers and became Jedi Knight. Not to mention KOTOR II was built around lightsabers and the force.

That's the fundamental issue everyone has with Star Wars. They want to evoke the OT without the mysticism because "everyone has already seen that" instead of doing something that would lend to their ideas much better like a prequel-era game similar in tone and design to Republic Commando, or a starfighter game.

Doesnt sound like anything of value was lost.

>It reportedly would have featured space combat that pulled inspiration from Yuma, a smaller, canceled project within Visceral that featured Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag-esque pirate gameplay in space.

What a missed opportunity. I may have actually purchased an EA game again if this had happened.

Alas, EA remains an ignoble stain on the industry and I will continue not purchasing anything they have a hand in.

>why isn't it all Jedi-y and lightsaber-y? This is shit! We're running a business here, not making fun video games!

And somehow, these films are still much better than the prequel shits Lucas himself made.

What's the point of making it Star Wars if you arent going to have anything that makes it Star Wars? Too many shit games just latch on to an existing IP they have nothing to do with because they would otherwise not be given the time of day. Instead of saying "Ok, how do we make out game like Tales from the Cantine or Tales from Jabbas Palace" they isntead go "ok how do we make out game as OC as possible?"

Sounds shitty, needs more fuggen epic MULTIPLAYER with LOOT CRATES

FUCK OFF SUCK MY COCK EA

>space pirates aren't Star Wars

One of the most iconic characters in the series is a space pirate. The fuck you say? Why would you even defend EA in this instance? They have a long, detailed track record of buying devs, milking them dry, forcing shit projects with unrealistic goals on them before finally putting a bullet in their brain, liquidating their assets, reassigning their staff after " trimming the fat " i.e. firing the dissenters and generally being a bunch of fucking fun ruining pieces of shit.

Scondrel adventures in Star Wars is not only something that was constantly explored by games and books, it's something that was quite present in the original trilogy.

>if you arent going to have anything that makes it Star Wars?
Star Wars is far more than just lightsaber duels and all that shit though, even in the movies. Of course it's a much harder argument to make in the post disney world where pretty much the entire extended universe is now non-canon. The new Mordor games are chugging along just fine, and it's basically fanon shit set in a fanon Mordor without the majority of shit present in LOTR, I don't see a problem.

>One of the most iconic characters in the series is a space pirate.
Who would that? Han Solo is close, but he smuggles contrabant and doesn't rob other starships.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

So EA makes some swedecucks make it? No thanks.

>doesn't rob other starships

he does though

>If a Star Wars game isn't about epin lightsaber battles then how am I going to know it's a SW game?

EA's target audience, everyone.

Except space pirates and scoundrels are fundamental to the Star Wars universe. Han Solo, Chewbacca, Boba Fett, Jabba, a lot of the popular characters that people instantly recognize are scoundrels at heart. And if you honestly think that lightsabers makes or breaks a Star Wars game, that's pretty short-sighted my dude.

>took place between the original 1978 film and The Empire Strikes Back
>the original 1978 film

IT'S FUCKING 1977 REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Seriously though. First no Boba Fett game in the Coruscant underworld and now this. The future of Star Wars games is half backed multiplayer microtransaction laden affairs.

One of the actual good things to come out of the turd that is TOR is the imperial agent story that has very little to do with lightsaber stories. It's widely accepted as the best character story in the game. While you can argue that it doesn't say much given the the other choices aside from sith warrior are pretty subpar it shows that fans do like something else than just pew pew lightsaber battles and shooting force lightning.

>DUDE REMEMBER WHEN LUKE ALSO CALLED THE FALCON A PIECE OF JUNK
>DUDE REMEMBER THE TRAINING DROIDE
>DUDE REMEMBER WHEN THE DEATH STAR BLEW UP ALDERAN
>DUDE REMEMBER THE TRENCH RUN
>DUDE REMEMNER HOW LEIA WAS JUST SITTING IN A WARZONE FOR A COUPLE HOURS TWIDLING HER THUMBS ON THE TANTIVE IV UNTIL THE BIGGER SHIP HOLDING THE CORVETTE GOT BOARDED SO SHE DECIDED IT WAS TIME TO GO AND VADER SAW HER AND THAT LET TO THE BEGINNING OF EPISODE IV

no

You dont need lightsabers or the force, but going by this interview and the concept art provided, Visceral wanted to make an OC group of OC alien races on their OC Millenium Falcon/Outrider/Ebon Hawk type ship without even considering visiting Kessel, Nar Shadaa, or Corellia.

>nu-Sup Forums acting shocked that EA killed another studio

Kids these days.

EA will continue to shit on Star Wars
Disney will shit on it and milk the franchise to death

Lucas please come back

He straight up took a loan from a crime lord and then told the crime lord to fuck off because lol rules and honor, we space pirates

Han Solo shot first BTW and is an actual criminal scoundrel

Lucas made his bed. He genuinely believed no one liked or wanted Star Wars anymore, despite the fact that all there even was post-2008 was The Clone Wars, which most people didn't watch because the pilot movie was dumb and it had a bad timeslot, and shit like Kinect Star Wars. Based entirely on lack of interest in those few things, he drastically undervalued his sale thinking he was actually getting way more than he ever could again. Then immediately shit his pants when the hype went critical over TFA.

I guess there's a fine line that needs to be drawn there, but I feel like the locations and references are enough to justify it as a Star Wars game without going all "lol look at the easter eggs we put into the game guys because we're such huge Star Wars fans lololol." I feel like OC is fine unless it's handled properly. Because if you base your entire game around TOO MUCH stuff that's been established already, people are going to roll their eyes when it shows that the team isn't ready to leave their comfort zone and venture out.

Star Wars was never really that great, but now it's going to be so much worse.

george come back.

That's because people don't understand that the main hook of Star Wars will always be the conflict between the Jedi and Sith. Everything else is irrelevant.

>Mordor
>Literally rapes the lore so much that it becomes a bukakke.
lel.

>propose sw game
>make it anything other than jedi/sith rise to power
>waaaah, why are we getting cancelled
They deserved it.

mordors do fine because they focus on the cool aspects, the lotr equivalent of lightsabers and sith. What this idiots tried to make was the sw equivalent of a hobbit pipe smoking simulator.
Nobody gives a shit about solo, it's all about the space magic knights.

It's a huge universe with a lot to explore.

This mentality makes it so we'll never have any spinoffs set outside the OT era.

Star Wars: Underworld should've been a thing. Put Rian Johnson on it and watch the money pour in.

TLJ director gives a fuck, and fixed JJ shit up of not giving him a eye scar like Anakin.
But now that 9 is going to be directed by Jar Jar Abrams the sequel trilogy is basically doomed.

I really like Twilek strippers though

I never hated you George. You were just a man whose creation grew out of his control and you were never able to understand what people liked about it.

You know if someone went through the trouble of doing the makeup job and provided a Twi'lek stripper experience, they'd make mad horny nerd dosh.

What so we could have loot boxes with lightsaber crystals and microtransactions to increase your max force power by 50% for 2 hours? Gaming is dead, Star Wars is dead, Star Wars gaming is doubly dead.

Don't deal with the devil, folks.

this desu

If you expect soul or love from a Disney owned EA operated franchise, I have bad news for you: CORPORATIONS DON'T LIKE YOU OR RESPECT YOU. They just want money.

...

>The team reportedly put plenty of time into the brief glimpse of the game shown in 2016, down to the precise movements of where Dodger placed his hands, but one source told Kotaku that core gameplay like shooting or actual environments hadn't yet been determined
So they just focused more on the animations instead of actually making a game? Sounds like nothing of value was lost.

>theres a timeline where both this game and 1313 were actually released and nu-Star Wars didn't happen

Jedi Academy
Empire at War

>"We don’t have a single environment for Dodger to exist in... How do you build a system if you don’t know what your average area is gonna be," the source told Kotaku.

this is the most important part
they were trying to already work on the detailks when the most fundamental shit wasnt even started to being worked on

>canceled project
>Black Flag-esque pirate gameplay in space
motherfucker

Sounds interesting

Sucks that EA is full of cucks who drain their money on shitty Battlefront sequels

KOTOR and BF also. These games were my jam back in the day.

Can we vote them the worst company again?

It's literally the most boring part of Star Wars having fucking jedi and lightsabers everywhere just made it not cool. Also Jedi are fucking retards.

i agree, sue me

It could turn out alright if Rey ends up being something other than she seems, like some kind of amnesiac or something.

>This truly isn’t about the death of single-player games

Where did this single player is dying meme come from, why are publishers talking about it so much.

>implying the west wants to play as rebel scum

Empire at War is a terribly mediocre RTS. Though Jedi Academy was fun.

wrong

>It would have been good
Nah. You can meme all you want it would have been shit.

Idk man, sounds like the devs dug their own grave with the slow progress and lack of star wars pandering

>EA Vancouver marches in
>fills game with cliche scenes
>proceeds to whine about unoriginality

dw guys we getting an open-empty-world tps mmolike star wars with porg pets and lootboxos HYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYPE!!!

You know to be fair to EA, Visceral was a pretty shit dev. Like Dead Space, DS Extraction, maybe DS2, and Future Cop: LAPD (1998) are the only games they've made that weren't trash and that's out of like 30 released projects.