According to a new report over on Kotaku, EA has pulled the plug on an unannounced Star Wars game that was intended to launch later this year alongside the PS5 and Xbox Series X.
The report mentions that the game was actually put on ice last year, with the information only just coming to light. Apparently, half a dozen people (does anybody respect their NDAs at EA these days?) have verified the game and its cancellation, so it does sound plausible.
EA execs were said to be looking to "fill a financial hole" at the end of 2020 and to that end repurposed the assets that had been created on Amy Hennig's Star Wars: Visceral Games Project (AKA Ragtag), giving them to EA Vancouver, which rebooted development and gave it a new codename: Orca. However, that game got cancelled too when EA execs got cold feet after the scope of the project became clear. Instead, the publisher decided to make something smaller and more focused.
This new game was codenamed Viking and EA Vancouver apparently spent "some time" working on the early stages of its development. Later, the UK-based developer Criterion was brought in as the lead studio on this Battlefront spin-off, which was intended to land alongside the launch of the next console generation.
However, when it became clear that this hard deadline wouldn't be hit due to the studio's ambitious plans, apparently EA higher-ups lost interest in the project. According to one unnamed sourced, development was hampered by a "too many cooks" approach, with Criterion's work with EA Vancouver suffering due to the geography of the situation.
What Viking or indeed Orca or Ragtag might have been we will never know, but it's clear that we won't be getting a new Star Wars game in time for the launch of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X later this year. Unless, of course, there are some people working at EA who still honour their NDAs and there's still a game in the works that we don't know about yet.