Another cancelled project continues the troubled relationship between Star Wars and video games, according to a recent report.
Video game publisher Electronic Arts cancelled development of a Star Wars game codenamed Viking last year, Kotaku has reported for the first time.
Viking is the third Star Wars game EA has pulled the plug on in the past three years. In 2017, EA closed internal studio Visceral Games and cancelled Ragtag, the codename of the Star Wars game it had spent two years developing. In 2018, another Star Wars game, this time codenamed Orca and in development at EA’s Vancouver studio, was also cancelled.
Since then EA Vancouver had been working on Viking, a spin-off of the Star Wars: Battlefront series, in collaboration with another EA team based in London. The plan was for Viking to release in late 2020 to coincide with the launch of new PlayStation and Xbox console hardware. Kotaku reveals that sometime in 2019, when it became clear the game would not hit that ship date, EA cancelled it.
EA signed an exclusive deal with Disney in 2013 for the right to make Star Wars video games. In nearly seven years since, the company has released just three console games—Star Wars: Battlefront (2015), Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2017) and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019).
For now, EA has two other Star Wars projects underway. Respawn has confirmed it is working on a follow-up to the successful Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order while another yet-to-be-detailed Star Wars game is in development at EA’s Montreal studio.
