A new shooter set in the Star Wars universe might be coming from Squadrons, Battlefront and Jedi: Fallen Order publisher EA later this year, if a new online rumor is to be believed.
Though the Star Wars license is now expanding to multiple publishers and developers, EA has said that it will continue to make Star Wars games. And while many assumed that meant Jedi: Fallen Order 2 and mobile game money-makers like Galaxy of Heroes, it isn’t impossible that another shooter could come from EA. After all, both of EA’s two Battlefront titles were commercially successful, despite the first one’s criticism for lacking content and the second’s lootbox controversy.
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This rumor comes from a so far reliable source on the GamingLeaksAndRumors subreddit known as OrcaOrcaisnotalone. Their only other post was one about that the original two Knights of the Old Republic being re-released as slight remasters for the current consoles, a rumor that has since been corroborated by multiple other sources. Orca’s new post says that EA has plans to release a new “small scale” Star Wars game later this year.
Orca compares the supposed game to Star Wars: Squadrons in terms of scale. That game had a small-scope but well liked single-player and popular multiplayer, which retailed for $39.99 instead of the usual $59.99. They also claim that the shooter has been in development for a little over two years and is being made in Unreal Engine 4. They game is expected to release in Q4 of this year for “all major platforms excluding the Nintendo Switch.”
One question this raises is which of EA’s studios is making this game. Almost all EA titles are made in the Frostbite engine, a proprietary engine created by Battlefield and Star Wars Battlefront developer DICE. The only major studio under EA who does not use Frostbite is Respawn Entertainment, which used Unreal Engine 4 to make Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. But Orca shot down the notion in the comments, saying that it is definitively not Respawn making this new game.
It could be that another EA studio is working with the Star Wars resources of Jedi: Fallen Order, similar to how Squadrons used the ship combat of Battlefront 2 as its base. But the question still remains what EA studio other than Respawn or DICE, which would obviously prefer to use its own proprietary Frostbite engine, would be making this game?
While this rumor obviously should be taken with a rather large grain of salt, it is reasonable to believe that EA would want to release another Star Wars shooter, especially in the wake of the massive boost of popularity Battlefront 2 received after being free on the Epic Game Store.
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