As EA has laid off a number of their developers, word has come that Respawn’s other Star Wars game has been shelved.
Another day, another major publisher has announced mass layoffs. This time around it’s EA, which is part of a larger “restructuring” that will see them shift some priorities in the games they’re making. As CEO Andrew Wilson said in his letter to the company:
“We are also sunsetting games and moving away from the development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry. This greater focus allows us to drive creativity, accelerate innovation, and double down on our biggest opportunities — including our owned IP, sports, and massive online communities — to deliver the entertainment players want today and tomorrow.”
This immediately got gamers wondering about the future of certain games (namely Marvel and Star Wars) that had been previously announced. Rumors from notable sources began hitting that the Star Wars FPS game from Respawn, which was recently reported to be a Mandalorian game, has been scrapped. EA was quick to confirm the news, while also assuring people that the third game in the Star Wars Jedi series is still moving forward along with the more recently announced Iron Man and Black Panther games.
No one mentioned the other Star Wars game announced at the same time as Respawn’s FPS, a strategy game from Bit Reactor, so at this point I’m going with “no news is good news.” That said, ALL of this sucks. Not even about losing yet another Star Wars game that sounded neat, but the fact the gaming industry is so fucked at the moment.
Just two months into 2024 and there have already been over 8,000 developers hit with layoffs. And that’s on top of the record amount from LAST year. It’s just…insane, and not sustainable, especially when you consider the majority of these publishers are still reporting profits.
Hopefully something changes soon, or we’re looking at a pretty bleak gaming future.
