EA and Disney’s Star Wars Deal a Decade Long Dynasty
The partnership between video game publisher Electronic Arts and entertainment empire Disney to produce games based in the Star Wars universe is reportedly a ten year deal.
Despite an early scare in which Disney, having freshly plucked the rights to the multi-million dollar franchise from Lucasfilm, stated intentions to move Star Wars away from big budget console titles in favor of the mobile market, EA reinstilled our faith in the force at E3 by announcing it’d be bringing the Battlefront series back to life under DICE’s tutelage. The news was a welcome departure from the grim future Disney preemptively foretold.
Beyond Battlefront, EA’s financial officer Blake Jorgensen said fans should look forward to a wide breadth of games based not just in J.J. Abrams’ new trilogy but titles featuring the whole of the extended Star Wars universe. “The beauty of the Star Wars franchise is it’s so broad and so deep you don’t have to do a movie game,” said Jorgensen, speaking at the UBS Global Tech Conference. “You can do a game that’s very focused on the world that’s been created around Star Wars.”
That’s not to say this new slew of games won’t mine Episode VII and its sequels for inspiration. Future games will indeed use assets introduced in the new trilogy, though Jorgensen was careful to note EA doesn’t plan on rushing movie tie-in games to hit any one film’s theatrical release. “We’ll try to align [new titles] with that marketing power that Disney has, but it won’t necessarily be aligned with the movies.”
In addition to Battlefront aiming its blasters for a Summer 2015 launch, EA confirmed that DICE – you may already be enjoying their work on Battlefield 4 as we speak… which is rude, since you’re only half paying attention to this article – has already laid the early foundations for a number of Star Wars titles, all of which are implied to dip into various genres.
I’d call this a verifiable Star Wars renaissance not seen since Episode I opened the floodgates back in ‘99. Rest assured, even if the new films are as eye-gougingly bad, like then, at least we’re bound to receive a few memorable games.