What! I'm talking about Star Wars again so soon? What could have possibly happened, something monumental? Has 'Knights of The Old Republic' been declared as getting a remaster effective immediately? No, but I'm excited to say that there are rumours to that effect cropping up and I feel that with each successful remaster Capcom and Square Enix puts out, that day comes draws ever closer. (Oh my god, if remakes really catch on then Konami might actually consider giving one to 'Snake Eater'! No, I shouldn't get my hopes up like that, my poor heart can't take it.) Instead we've had an interesting cap-off to a string of Star Wars game related stories that have leaked out over the past few weeks, and I think this one is rather interesting.
For those who possess the ability to filter out useless information and have already forgotten this; firstly, I envy you, and secondly, let me remind you. A few years back the general public started to become increasingly aware of the way that EA was pivoting away from single player games or even single player components to multiplayer games, which was starting to cause a little distress. In order to combat this narrative the current EA CFO, Blake Jorgensen, (No, not the one with the face.) straight up admitted to everything by essentially declaring that single player games were dead. What followed was a period of disquiet among the gaming community as many folk, like me, complained that social interaction was hugely overrated and we wouldn't let bigwigs take our single player games away without a fight. Even companies like CDPR and Bethesda came to our defence, with the latter putting money and marketing behind a huge campaign called 'Saveplayerone'. (Of course, then they went on to release an entirely multiplayer Fallout title in the next year that was a travesty, but it's the thought that counts?)
Fast forward a few years later, several layoffs and one classic studio being put down, (RIP Visceral) and 'Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order' comes out as a new title from Respawn. That game is entirely single player and yet manages to do gangbusters and win over critics across the board, proving that EA are talking our their rectums and that all those other gaming executives who played it safe around that time (Looking at you, Shannon Loftis) should get off the fence to get their facts straight. (Besides, I own a the patent for fence sitting.) This was a big win for the Single Player crowd and many were left wondering how it was that we got so lucky, why did EA even greenlight this game in the first place? And we got a little glimpse into why that might be a few weeks ago.
You see, the history of Star Wars games has been pretty tumultuous ever since Disney got their grubby mitts on the brand, and it's been that way pretty much since day one. Not many people realised it, but before the Disney take over there was a major Star Wars game released every year since 2000, until the Disney purchase. From that point on there was a clamp down on all major games and only Mobile titles and cheap tie-ins were there to tide fans over for the 3 Star Wars games that EA has managed to put out in the last 8 years. (Except for in the year 2018, where nothing Star Wars related so much as touched the world of gaming.) We foresaw this sort of treatment befalling the Star Wars brand immediately when a hotly anticipated title that was still in the early stages of it's creation, Star Wars 1313, was axed alongside with the storied studio; Lucas Arts. (Yes, I know they live on as a sole licencor now, but that's hardly what one would call living.)
EA got handed an exclusivity deal for working on Star Wars and they decided to exercise it almost immediately by starting work on a reboot to the Battlefront franchise and a Single Player title known as 'Project Ragtag'. This would be headed by legendary game designer Amy Hennig (Known for Uncharted) and would be a grounded action adventure title that is so ridiculously up-my-alley it ain't even funny. Of course that title sounded too promising so it was killed off, this we knew. Then came a Visceral project that was little spoken about in it's preproduction stage, and that's because it died when they died. Now we've learnt that there was yet another title after that, which was envisioned to be a spin-off title for Star Wars Battlefront and was being worked on by Criterion. Then that was spaced off into the great beyond never to be seen ag- hang on. Why is 'Project Maverick' trending?
As it turn out, a weakness from the backend of the Playstation Store (Why is it always the Playstation store? What the kind of farm are you running over there, Sony?) has allowed for details about a new Star Wars title to be leaked through a data-mining Twitter bot or something. (Look, how it happened isn't important, what is are the details.) What we saw was a little snippet of artwork that you can see below, showing an ISD dangerously close within the atmosphere to a lava-spewing, Mustafar-looking planet, alongside the name 'Project Maverick'. Now for my part I'm fairly confused about this, because the whole 'Project' prefix would imply that this is a working title that is bound for the glue factory alongside all the rest of EA's Star Wars projects, but now that there's official-looking artwork it seems that this is the actual finished title. (That's kinda weird. Is this a VR title or something?)
Of course, this relates to the confirmed two Star Wars projects that EA were confirmed to be working on earlier this year with the other being a sequel to 'Fallen Order'. (Oh great, more Jedis in my Star Wars. I can't wait...) The most interesting part of this news, however, is the fact that this is rumoured to be a spin-off title to Star Wars Battlefront, which would make one believe that this is the cancelled title that I mentioned earlier, but that was being developed by Criterion whilst Kotaku have confirmed that this title is getting handled by EA Motive. (Who were another assistant studio for Battlefront 2 alongside Criterion and DICE.) So what's the story there? Did EA pluck the project out of Criterion's hands and hand it to Motive, or did they commission two spin-off games for Battlefront and then proceeded to pit them against each other in a gladiatorial-style contest afterwhich they axed off the loser. (Whatever story eventually comes out, I choose to believe the gladiator one.)
But I'm just speculating at this point, what is known and now confirmed is this; a game called 'Star Wars: Project Maverick' is in development for at least one console. (Remember that Playstation does have VR functionality so my VR guess might still be on the money.) Personally, I find this news to be rather intriguing as this is the first time since Project Ragtag's announcement that we've really had no idea what to expect out of a Star Wars game. ('Jedi Fallen Order' sort of gives it's premise away with the title.) Knowing EA, however, I would never go so far as to be excited by this game, that is reserved for a detail drop. But until then the stage is primed for good old rampant speculation, so I'm gonna get my speculating hat on and I hope you will too, it's always fun to play the guessing game! (Now firstly, I think this might be a 'Logan Paul x Star Wars' crossover event...)
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