The news was dropped in a tweet on the official Battlefield handle, and came with a glimmer of good news: the PC version of the game has managed to escape the fate of its console counterparts.

If you didn’t get the chance to try it out back in the day, now might be a good time to boot up your old consoles and give it a shot. We found it reasonably entertaining back in the day, and its take on good cops taking a stand against drug cartels was interesting enough to warrant spending some time with its rather unorthodox gameplay loop.

In the meantime, Battlefield 6 is still going strong, despite a significant drop in players following numerous issues. Season 2 is currently underway with a new map and weapons in multiplayer, while RedSec received a new point of interest. Head here for all the details.

https://x.com/battlefieldcomm/status/2036110796921463224

Of course, if you own any of these games, the single-player campaigns remain playable. Furthermore, each title will remain available for other platforms. Those still enjoying Battlefield 3 on PC or Battlefield 4 and Hardline on Xbox One, PS4, or PC can continue to do so without any issues.

The announcement comes a few months after Electronic Arts confirmed no further seasons for Battlefield 2042. The next title in the series has yet to be officially revealed. However, it has the largest team in the franchise’s history working on it, including DICE, Motive Studios, Ripple Effect Studios and Criterion Games. EA CEO Andrew Wilson described it as a “tremendous live service”, though details on its setting and mechanics remain unknown. Stay tuned for further updates.

https://t.co/2W8dLlGjBM

— Battlefield Comms (@BattlefieldComm) June 28, 2024

According to Beaver, some of the more controversial parts of Dead Space 3 were developed because: “There’s a return on investment number that has to be hit, so there were some calculated risks that we all made that we thought would do it, and it didn’t work out.”

For context, Dead Space 3 was a major departure from the franchise’s roots. The game included a co-op mode for its main campaign, and also included a new weapon crafting system that was also monetised, allowing players to pay real money to get their hands on more crafting materials to make better weapons.

Beaver goes on to talk about the decision to include co-op in Dead Space 3, owing quite a bit to the relatively low popularity of the survival horror genre at the time of the game’s release back in 2013.

“I mean, that’s almost inarguable at this point,” Beaver replied, “because the cap seems to be around 2 million people who are really wanting to see it,” said Beaver in response to CaptinBribo suggesting that there was a cap on the number of players interested in single-player horror titles at the time.

“The plan was that we would expand into other gameplay genres and stuff, and I think all those bits together not only didn’t generate a new audience, they lost the old audience,” explained Beaver.

“The gun mechanic, the re-crafting, [we] missed a lot of the stuff that everybody loved about the old one, and then created a whole bunch of exploration space – we were on a big wide open planet because of that. And all these decisions had lots of follow-on. And then co-op – the hits just kept coming – it was like ‘what? Co-op?’”

Beaver goes on to talk about Dead Space 3 essentially losing its identity because it no longer became clear what the game was shaping up to be. Since it included co-op and a more open space for exploration compared to its predecessors, Beaver likens it more to a game like the Uncharted series, complete with big set pieces, puzzles, and a more adventurous feeling.

“We weren’t allowed to make a horror game from the beginning so [creative director] Ben [Wanat] and I were like, well, what are we making?” says Beaver. “If you look at it, it’s a beautiful Drake’s Uncharted game, an adventure with puzzles and set pieces.”

Beaver believes that the best way to tackle Dead Space 3 again would be to just start completely from scratch and tap into the ending of Dead Space 2 to tell the story of protagonist Isaac Clarke losing his mind, and the consequences of him being broken.

“I would just start from complete scratch and I would make this […] about the end of Dead Space 2,” he explained. “He’s broken, and now this is the adventure of Isaac in Dead Space 3 – broken Isaac. he tried to do the thing, tried to do the truth, it broke him, and now we’re in the consequences of him being broken.

“And I would make it like a Tyler Durden thing, an unreliable narrator where you’re like ‘what happened?’ and the player maybe doesn’t even know, Isaac certainly doesn’t know.”

But is that the case? Was Dead Space 3 really that bad – or was it a misunderstood experiment that’s much better than series fans initially thought it was? Was it an underrated gem? Of course, the answer to that question doesn’t boil down to a single yes or no – and there are many things that need to be taken into consideration before drawing a conclusion. All that said, let’s dive in and take a look back at Dead Space 3 all these years later.

The scenario surrounding the development of Dead Space 3 was an interesting one. In spite of Dead Space 2 boasting rave reviews, the game failed to hit its projected sales numbers – and at one point, EA even had plans to outright cancel the third game as per multiple reports of the time. To avoid the same failures, the team felt that the game needed to appeal to the larger masses rather than the survival horror niche that the first 2 games targeted.

So the team took inspiration from the likes of Uncharted and Gears of War – both of which were raking in great sales figures with each entry, and the developers set out to create a game that would incorporate action elements into its survival horror formula with high-stakes set-pieces and shootout sequences among other new elements – and we got the Dead Space 3 that we know today.

But while Dead Space 3 upped the ante when it came to gameplay, it took a step back in terms of its plot. The first two games showcased a deeply disturbed protagonist as he does everything in his might to survive and learn more about the Necromorphs. Dead Space 3 flips the formula on its head as the story essentially revolves around him trying to stop a Necromorph infection from spreading on Earth, which could have been a nice change of pace from usual survival horror – but ends up feeling forced with many characters and events not contributing anything meaningful to the narrative proceedings which ultimately results in a padded-out experience. That said, it’s not all that bad since some of the newer characters like Carver are well-written with interesting character arcs that are worth seeing through to the end.

Over on the gameplay front, Dead Space 3 feels a lot better than its predecessors thanks to smooth animations that blend nicely into one another. The core gameplay revolves around shooting your way through Necromorphs as you strategically dismember their limbs by making judicial use of your ammunition, and it’s just as fun as it was before. You could also take cover to hide from incoming fire, since there are scenarios where you will come across fights against other human soldiers who would obviously use ranged weaponry.

The game features a decent assortment of weapons to choose from the likes of Plasma Cutter, EG-900 SMG, Evangelizer among others – and they all feel pretty distinct from one another. The ammunition is consumed from a common pool, so you always have a lot of options in how you choose to go about encounters. You also have special abilities such as kinesis which allows you to manipulate objects, and you also get Stasis which allows Isaac to slow down a target’s movement temporarily – allowing him to easily target weak parts to dispatch enemies.

Players can also upgrade their weapons during their travels, which was something that was presumably done with an intention of adding some RPG-esque character progression to the gameplay. Furthermore, Isaac can also undertake several side-missions at many points throughout the story – which would give you additional rewards that would go towards making Isaac stronger. Hell, there’s even a new game+ option that lets Isaac wreak havoc on his adversaries with his high-level endgame gear. There are also action-heavy cinematic sequences including but not limited to zero-g sections – and all of it culminates to make Dead Space 3’s gameplay loop more empowering than its predecessors.

Briefly talking about the visuals, Dead Space 3 also provided a noticeable bump in graphical fidelity from Dead Space 2 – which was also a pretty beautiful game for its time. But Dead Space 3 improved on those foundations with a thicker sense of atmosphere, beautiful vistas, and plenty of sprawling levels filled with great attention to detail. Suffice it to say, it was easily one of the best-looking games of the generation – and it did all that without sacrificing on performance.

Once you are done with your single-player adventures, you could hop back into the game with a buddy for some co-op action which lets the second player assume the role of Carver. Playing that way reveals additional story beats with alternative cutscenes, and you could also partake in special side-missions that wouldn’t be available otherwise. All in all, Dead Space 3 plays and feels a lot different from its predecessors despite having been cut from the same cloth.

Ultimately, the game’s tonal shifts and differences from prior entries became the most divisive factors when it comes to Dead Space 3 – and the developer’s attempts to capture a larger audience with these changes bit them back in the foot as it alienated series fans. Sure, there are some objective shortcomings with the experience such as repetitive encounters and uninteresting stretches of story, but taken on the whole – it’s a solid experience with plenty to like as well.

We also have to consider the fact that EA purposefully added microtransactions into a single-player game, which further added fuel to the fire – resulting in an audience that got frustrated with the publisher’s business practices and all of it ultimately hampered the game’s reception. EA once again failed to hit its projected sales numbers when it came to Dead Space 3, and any plans of a sequel were promptly dismembered and the developer was reduced to a support studio until 2017 when it finally closed doors.

Now that all that fuss is over and the smoke has finally cleared out, Dead Space 3 actually is a good experience – one that smartly trades the franchise’s survival horror roots for some high-stakes action, but makes sure that you put enough effort into a sense of power fantasy with upgraded weapons and abilities. The co-op and new game-plus modes are also great ways of re-experiencing the game from a fresh perspective. Sure, it’s nothing that will blow you away – and it’s by no means an underrated gem (a 78 score on Metacritic seems just for the kind of experience that it offers). But if you have a hankering for some more Dead Space action, entry number 3 might not be a bad option all these years later.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

After a great deal of pre-release marketing and hype, Dead Space 2 was finally released in January 2011. Critics and fans absolutely lapped up the game, as they continually lauded praises for the game’s excellent atmosphere, genuinely terrifying scares, and a markedly more mature and personal story. At the time of writing, Dead Space 2 stands at a shining score of 90 on Metacritic and more than 11 years later – it remains one hell of a game to look back to. 

Dead Space 2 follows up on the adventures of the series protagonist Isaac Clarke as he tries to find his way about the Sprawl space station. You see, after going through the horrors of the first game – Issac finds himself trapped with serious mental issues stemming from the alien Markers. Trapped by EarthGov in this mental asylum, Isaac must now somehow escape through these Necromorph-infested corridors and alleyways all while coming to terms with and combating his own personal demons. While Dead Space was by no means a light-hearted adventure, Dead Space 2 veers into much darker territory with its narrative as it tries to deal with heavy subjects like mental illnesses – and mostly succeeds in this aspect with its depiction of Isaac’s twisted mental state. 

The developer added some neat touches here and there, such as how Isaac’s dementia is represented through his recollection of nursery rhymes and how Nicole’s visions from the past haunt him to this day. In addition to the central character, there are supporting characters such as the likes of Stross and Guin which may not be the most memorable – but combined with the gripping story makes for an enjoyable ride through and through. All of this culminates to form a distinct visual identity for the game which in extension, helps create an unsettling and ominous vibe that is perfect for any survival horror experience. 

Now coming over to the gameplay side of things, Dead Space already nailed a meticulous and methodical gameplay that borrows from the likes of contemporary horror games while injecting a few neat ideas of its own. While just giving out more of the same would have been decent enough for most fans of the first game, the developer added a few neat tricks and embellishments that breathe new life into this amazing combat system. Isaac Clark is both more nimble with his movements and more proficient with his guns, which makes for a markedly faster combat system that’s most definitely an improvement over the original.

Sure, there are a few cinematic quick-time events sprinkled through the experience that can make sections of the game feel more action-oriented than survival horror, but the developer managed to strike a great balance between these aspects so as to not overshadow one element of the experience with the other. Of course, this wouldn’t be the case with the next entry in the franchise, but that’s another story for another time.

Either way, Isaac is still put up against the ferocious Necromorphs once again as they overrun this space station. And much like the first game, you have to focus on taking them down as efficiently as possible, which usually entails chopping off their limbs with carefully placed shots. While the actual pace of the combat loop is faster than in the first game, Dead Space 2 still retains the methodical nature of the original. You will always have just enough ammunition to barely scrape by enemy encounters, but if you are careless about your shots – you will most likely end up in trouble with your adversaries. You can also upgrade your guns, which helps in providing a gradual sense of power fantasy as you slowly and steadily become more capable of dealing with harder enemies throughout the game. Isaac also got a couple of new tricks to add even more variety to combat through Kinesis and Stasis – which opens up new and exciting opportunities to dispatch Necromorphs.

Dead Space 2 also introduced some zero-g sections where Isaac would explore vacuumed-off areas all while keeping tabs on his constantly waning oxygen supply. Additional oxygen tanks would replenish the supply, so you would have to be on the lookout for these resources during these sections. Sure, they weren’t a game-changer by any means, but these touches do go a long way in ensuring an experience that’s more varied and dynamic in nature. 

While Dead Space 2′s single-player offerings are a well-rounded experience in itself, the developer also added a couple of end-game activities to keep those wanting to spend more time with the game busy for hours on end. Firstly, there’s the competitive multiplayer experience, which was a cut above the shoehorned multiplayer offerings that were so prevalent during the generation – making it a worthy distraction from the single-player campaign. Hell, you could even play as different kinds of Necromorphs and hunt down the other team as they made a beeline for the objectives. 

But even if you wanted to stick to the single-player side of things, completing the game on harder difficulties was a worthwhile challenge, or you could start a new game plus to carry your high-level equipment over a new campaign. Especially devoted players could also attempt to complete the game on the hardcore difficulty, which requires you to get through the game with only 3 saves. If you die at any point, you will of course – be redirected to the last save point that could potentially rob you of hours of hard-earned progress. 

In conclusion, what made Dead Space 2 such an enthralling experience can be chalked up to how the developer managed to check off all the boxes for what fans desire from a sequel. More of the same? check. New abilities like Stasis and Kinesis? check. A gripping story with some sense of purpose and maturity? check. Topping that off is a surprisingly fleshed-out array of options when it comes to end-game distractions like the enjoyable multiplayer and additional challenging difficulties.

While going back to Dead Space 2 may end up feeling a bit hard due to its somewhat muddy visuals and chunky controls when compared to modern releases, the actual experience more than makes up for these rough edges. All these years later, it’s still a damn fine game. That said, we’d really love to see a full-fledged remake of this game as well – much in the vein of the upcoming remake of the first Dead Space. 

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Hennig was leading development on a third person action-adventure Star Wars title at Visceral Games for several years. Codenamed Project Ragtag, the project was cancelled in 2017 after several years of development, and Visceral Games was shut down. It seems, however, that Ragtag might have found a way to live on.

As per prominent leaker @accngt (via DualShockers), Skydance New Media’s Star Wars game, which is reportedly codenamed Project Walton, is a revival of “some sort” of Project Ragtag. Allegedly, the game will be set in the Rebel Alliance era (the era that the original Star Wars trilogy is set in), similar to Ragtag, though the leaker doesn’t go into further detail on what other similarities the two projects could have.

Interestingly, Hennig’s team at Skydance New Media has another major licensed AAA game in the works, with a Marvel game having been announced last October. Reportedly, the project is either based on Fantastic Four or Ant-Man– read more on that through here.

https://twitter.com/accngt/status/1516565144943349764

And the people who created Dead Space, it seems, are just as excited. Glen Schofield, who co-created the sci-fi survival horror series and was director on the first game, took to Twitter following the recent announcement to share his excitement about it, saying that he’s looking forward to seeing what EA Motive does with the game.

EA Motive responded promptly afterward, noting, “You paved the way for us, Glen.” And of course, Schofield, currently at Striking Distance Studios, is working on his own sci-fi survival horror Dead Space-inspired game, The Callisto Protocol, and EA Motive (like most of us) is excited to see how that shapes up as well. Nice to see that mutual respect there.

Both Dead Space and The Callisto Protocol are in the works for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The Callisto Protocol has a 2022 launch window, but Dead Space doesn’t yet have a release timeframe. EA has confirmed that the horror game won’t have any microtransactions, and won’t have any load times thanks to the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S’ hardware.

“Directing the original Dead Space was one of the highlights of my career.  Excited to see what the EA @MotiveStudio team does with it!”

— Glen A. Schofield (@GlenSchofield) July 22, 2021

https://twitter.com/MotiveStudio/status/1418301656492560384

Maybe they were young and just weren’t playing games when the original game came out or maybe they were just playing on a system that didn’t have that game for whatever reason, in either case it’s nice to give people ways to play games without necessarily having to lug out old hardware, look past dated visuals and fumble around with outdated controls. So, the case for releasing remastered and remade versions of old games pretty much makes itself. Given all of that you would think Electronic Arts would be the first ones to come up with the idea of a Dead Space remastered trilogy. But it seems like they’re going to be the last – if it ever does happen. We here at GamingBolt have no reason to believe that a Dead Space remastered collection is presently being worked on at any stage at any level and that is utterly disappointing. I think it’s high time that we really start pushing for this – politely and logically of course – given that these games have been stranded on 7th generation consoles for well over a decade now, despite being some of the best games that the publisher had put out in that entire generation.

Like I touched on before, the financial incentive of a remastered collection of all three games pretty much explains itself. The games are already done – they’ve already been made.  there isn’t a whole lot of copyrighted music or characters that are owned by other companies or any other sort of bureaucratic legal gray areas that EA would really have to contend with here either. The original games were made and released by EA and are still owned by EA. Given that as far as I can tell it should be a pretty straight line from deciding to do a remastered collection of these three games and releasing them in whatever way EA decides to. whether that’s through origin or steam or going all the way with physical copies on store shelves or whatever path, it’s very doable for EA and there’s really no financial or market-based reason that I can come up with as to why they shouldn’t. In fact, I would go a step further and argue on the development side it would be a pretty straight line as well.

The games were designed by the team from the now disbanded Visceral Games and they were designed incredibly well. So much so that they still look really good. Playing the PC version of any of these three games doesn’t really feel like you were playing games from over a decade ago at least visually. Given that they hold up so well, the remastering effort could really be more-so just focus on optimization and getting these games running at 4K and perhaps 60 frames per second, rather than touching up a bunch of texture mapping and redesigning character models. They could certainly go that extra mile if they wanted to but I don’t think it would really be all that necessary, which would keep the development price tag even lower than it probably would be for other more in-depth remasters like the Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy, where they had much less to work with. With Dead Space, you could really leave the vast majority of the game alone and just focus on optimization and I think the vast majority of players would be fine with that.

Another reason why they should absolutely do this is that it would sell incredibly well. I think it’s fair to assume this but let’s go into a few reasons why; first of all, it’s one of the most commonly asked for remasters over the past several years – and not Just of EA games – I mean in general. People have been asking for a remastered collection of the Dead Space games for a very long time and to finally give that to people would absolutely generate a ton of buzz and a ton of money for EA that they could use to fund future projects and so on. It would also sell well for another reason though; Nintendo players could also have a crack at the series. Some might forget but all three of the main Dead Space games were not released on any Nintendo consoles. Now that Nintendo has caught up with the HD Revolution with the switch one could reasonably surmise that the Dead Space games would run just fine on that machine. Now granted it probably wouldn’t run as well as it would on the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox Series X, but you could definitely put slightly compromised versions of these games on the switch, and I think it would sell gangbusters. Given that Nintendo has shown more of an openness to AAA third party games in this generation than they have in the recent past with games like Wolfenstein 2 and Resident Evil 7 on the device, I think a Dead Space remastered collection on the switch along with the other consoles would make a lot of sense.

EA could absolutely go the extra mile here if they wanted to and include the multiplayer mode on Dead Space 2 as well as the co-op mode for Dead Space 3 to really make this thing feel complete and I think they should. If they’re going to remaster these games, they should definitely go all the way. Granted neither of those multiplayer modes really set the world on fire they did add a fair amount of replayability for Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3 and given that I think it would make sense to include them and support the servers on EA side for as long as they possibly can.

Whatever they decide to do with the Dead Space series they absolutely have to do something. We’re already seeing spiritual successors like The Callisto Protocol start a pop-up – which wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if EA had maintained the Dead Space series with any amount of regularity. Not only are they leaving Dead Space fans hanging by not doing so but they’re opening the door for competitors to come in and give players a similar experience that scratches basically the same itch. The bottom line is it’s just money being left on the table for EA, and if there’s any argument that a company like EA understands it’s the financial one.

BioWare – Anthem

Say what you will about Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition and even Mass Effect Andromeda – on some level, all of those games had something going for them. Not so in the case of Anthem, which released in a horrible state and probably has the worst post-launch support of any games-as-a-service title yet. It’s not the terrible loot drops, boring combat, lack of customization, barren end-game or plentiful glitches that gets us – it’s that BioWare, famous for some of the best RPGs ever made, couldn’t even string together a decent story to tell.

But as we all well know, EA’s management of Star Wars, outside of Fallen Order, has been an absolute mess. In December of 2013, Disney signed a deal with EA that granted the publisher exclusive rights to make games based on the Star Wars license. There was a healthy amount of skepticism in the industry concerning the deal even back then, owing to EA’s less than stellar reputation, and over the years, that skepticism has proven to be not without merit. 

With a string of cancelled titles and a couple of disappointing releases, it feels like EA is squandering the potential of an incredible license, and crushing any ideas for games with true potential based on rushed or frustrating decisions. But how exactly did we get here- with ten years to work exclusively on a property, surely EA could and should have been well-placed to deliver a string of excellent games, which they clearly haven’t done. Just as a teeny tiny example, with Star Wars and BioWare both under EA’s belt, many would have figured that Knights of the Old Republic 3 would have been a no-brainer, but in spite of several efforts on BioWare’s parts to make it happen, EA doesn’t seem to think of it as a good idea. Clearly, things aren’t going the way they should have. So what the hell happened?

Since EA’s acquisition of the license for a ten-year period, we’ve seen them deliver two major Star Wars releases, with a third coming out in November of this year. The first was Star Wars Battlefront, which wasn’t a bad game by any means, but felt like half a game. It had no single player campaign, and even its multiplayer component felt like it was lacking in content. Then came Battlefront 2, a game that certainly wasn’t lacking in content, but royally messed things up in other infamous ways. Thanks to EA’s need for aggressive monetization, a perfectly good game was ruined- and while Battlefront 2 has surely recovered quite a bit in the two years since its release and is now a significantly better game, in the history books, it will always be looked at as a major disappointment.

To be truthful, the Star Wars license had suffered a major blow in the video games industry even before EA tapped up exclusive rights for it. Back in 2012, LucasArts unveiled Star Wars 1313, a stellar looking action adventure title that looked like the Star Wars version of Uncharted. It looked ambitious and exciting, and millions were thrilled to see a game of its kind in development. But the game went through troubles during development, and when LucasArts was acquire by Disney, it was ultimately cancelled. 

And though that was a huge disappointment, not too long afterward, hope arrived, strangely enough, in the form of a Star Wars game being developed under the management of EA, who tasked Visceral Games of Dead Space fame with creating their own single player action adventure title. Under the guidance of Amy Hennig, the creator of Uncharted, Visceral looked set to deliver the ultimate Star Wars experience, and the anticipation of what the title would surely go on to become helped soften the blow of 1313’s cancellation immensely. 

But that game didn’t last too long either. Visceral’s project, which was being developed under the codename Ragtag, was the first of several casualties in EA’s Star Wars massacre. In 2017, Visceral Games was shut down, another name in a long list of studios that have been axed by EA over the years, while Ragtag as we know it was canned.

I say “as we know it”, because the project didn’t completely die, even back then. The shuttering of Visceral was a gut punch to the entire industry, but specifically in the case of their ambitious Star Wars project, it seemed like all hope wasn’t lost yet. EA Vancouver had been assisting Visceral in the development of Ragtag, but after Visceral was shut down and Ragtag was cancelled, Vancouver picked up the pieces. 

Led by Jade Raymond, the new development team took some of the work that had been done by Visceral, and morphed it into a new project- an open world Star Wars game that would still have the Uncharted-like narrative-driven elements that Ragtag was being built around. Of course, that sounded excellent- but of course, that didn’t last long either. As recently as January of this year, we heard that that project had also been cancelled. 

One look at the reasons for all these cancellations is enough to tell us that EA’s decision-making process with all these projects has either been too rushed, or driven by their own shifting practices. The open world Star Wars game was cancelled because the game would have taken too long to finish development, and EA wanted to release a game much sooner. They replaced that project and diverted resources to another smaller scale project, which is currently being developed under the codename Orca, and is expected to launch in 2020.

With Ragtag, it’s become a well-known fact by now that that game, like so many others in recent years, suffered because of having to be developed using the problematic Frostbite engine, an engine which has hamstrung the development for titles like Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, and Anthem in the last few years. 

There’s also the fact that EA had strictly mandated that single player-only titles with no monetization possibilities simply wouldn’t fly. Recently, in an interview with Eurogamer, Amy Hennig spoke about the same, saying that she was pleasantly surprised that Respawn Entertainment had been allowed to create exactly that kind of game, because when she had been working on Ragtag at EA, Visceral had been strictly told that the game would have to abide by EA’s philosophies. And we all know what those philosophies are- anything that isn’t live service isn’t worth investing it.

And to be completely honest, EA don’t deserve a lot of credit for Fallen Order either. It’s been made abundantly clear by now that the game is solely Respawn Entertainment’s vision, one that EA had nothing to do with, while there are a few other factors to consider as well. For starters, a huge chunk of Fallen Order’s development had already been done before they’d been acquired by EA, which means the game would have been largely been protected by EA’s influence, and by the time Respawn did join up with them, it would have been too far along in production to change significantly. There’s also the fact that, as Amy Hennig speculated herself in the aforementioned interview, Vince Zampella, CEO of Respawn, sits on the executives board of EA, and has a certain amount of say and authority, which he can use to protect the interests of his own studio.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has got a lot of people very excited. We’re all looking forward to it, because it’s checking all the right boxes, and because it looks like it will deliver the kind of story-driven single player Star Wars experience we’ve all been craving for so long. But even if it turns out to be excellent – which it very well might – will anybody be congratulating EA and crediting them for its success? No, it’s fair to say that it’ll be Respawn who will get the praise- and deservedly so. Fallen Order looks excellent because we trust in Respawn, not in EA. 

For now, the best we can hope for is that Fallen Order is a huge commercial success for EA- big enough that they can allow Respawn to continue exercising the level of creative freedom and autonomy that they have been doing. All the evidence suggests that this might be one of the last major big budget single player-focused titles we see coming out of EA, but if it manages to sell well enough and make EA a healthy amount of money, maybe, just maybe, they’ll greenlight more projects of this nature. There’s also the matter of Orca, the new smaller scale Star Wars project that replaced Vancouver’s open world one. It’s a game we know nothing about- here’s hoping we learn more about it soon, and that it will go against the odds and turn out to be another exciting project- one that actually gets finished and released.