We’re in the dark times for Star Wars video games right now, as despite license holder EA saying it is “committed” to making more Star Wars games, the only one the publisher has announced is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order from Titanfall developer Respawn—and that game doesn’t have a release date, screenshot, or even a logo. Now screenwriter Gary Whitta, who was the first writer on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, has blasted the publisher, calling EA Star Wars “an embarrassment” and “catastrophically mismanaged.”
This came in the wake of the report about how EA has supposedly canceled its open-world Star Wars game, which was being developed at EA Vancouver, and was based on the Uncharted-style Star Wars game that had been developed at Dead Space creators Visceral Games before that was also canceled and the studio shut down. Whitta was asked about this during an interview with Greg Miller on the Kinda Funny YouTube channel.
“It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?” are the first words out of Whitta’s mouth, and from there he has some harsh things to say. He calls both Battlefront games “kind of mediocre,” with the Battlefront 2 microtransaction issue “a major embarrassment, not just to EA, but to Disney and to the Star Wars brand.” He adds, “I would take the license away from EA, because it’s been catastrophically mismanaged and is an embarrassment… EA has squandered [the license]”
Gary Whitta certainly knows both Star Wars and video games. He was the former editor-in-chief of PC Gamer before becoming a screenwriter, penning the first script for the Star Wars Rogue One movie, several episodes of CGI cartoon series Star Wars Rebels, and the well-received comic book adaptation of The Last Jedi.
He does, however, has some positive comments. He notes that Jedi Fallen Order “has the potential to be great” and has high praise for Respawn. He also apparently saw something of the Visceral Star Wars project, and said that it “looked phenomenal” and that “it basically would have been Star Wars Uncharted.” Before it was canceled, of course. “If I was an EA shareholder, I’d be f***ing furious,” he adds.
