EA has had its share of mess-ups and fans are not afraid to call out poor moves and mindsets that the company has endured within the past. However, one move that has left quite a few players upset was the single-player Star Wars video game that Visceral Games was working on for a few years before being cancelled. Now a few years later, we’re finally getting some details on what the game was going to be about. Thanks to a former producer, Zach Mumbach, we have a new inside look at the production behind the project that would have been a massive hit in Zach’s eyes.
If you’re unfamiliar with Visceral Games, this studio has been around since the late 1990s and has brought out quite a few titles over the years. Arguably the biggest would have been the Dead Space franchise, but over the years afterward, the studio managed to hire a big industry leader. Amy Hennig, formerly a creative director and writer for the Uncharted franchise, stepped in to help bring out a single-player Star Wars game.
That title was called Project Ragtag, which was set to be a third-person action-adventure game similar to the likes of Uncharted. With a linear game is placed, we knew that the title would happen around the events of Star Wars IV: A New Hope. According to Zach Mumbach, the project was quite impressive as again it would the feel of Uncharted but set within the Star Wars universe. However, EA made some significant changes that made the development process difficult. Instead of using an engine that Visceral Games could really thrive for single-player video games, the change to Frostbite was forced which came at a time where the studio lost quite a few experts that would be crucial to delivering a single-player experience.
Another big hit was when some of the leadership apparently came to the studio and looked at the project. Rather than aligning with the vision of delivering a cinematic single-player experience, EA was in rush to get this game out. That ultimately forced Visceral Games to make several big cuts to the gameplay that they had planned for. As you know, the game was eventually cancelled and Visceral Games was shut down, with EA seemingly going a different route with a more multiplayer-focused gameplay experience.
It wouldn’t be but a few years later that EA had a change of heart after the immense success that Respawn Entertainment was able to deliver with a single-player Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order video game release. Now we can only wonder what Amy Hennig and the team at Visceral Games had planned for the Star Wars project that will never see the light of day.
