It’s been a rough week at EA, with the company laying off almost 700 staff members and cancelling an unannounced Mandolrian game, but thankfully it’s not all bad news.
Earlier this week, EA announced it was laying off 5% of its workforce, which included closing Battlefield developer Ridgeline Games, cancelling Respawn’s technically first-person Star Wars shooter (believed to be about a Mandalorian), and moving away from developing games based on licensed IP. That isn’t completely true for the time being, as it will still make a third Star Wars Jedi game, as well as its Iron Man and Black Panther games. And now, as confirmed by the developer of the game itself, Bit Reactor has also confirmed that the Star Wars strategy game it was developing, with EA on publishing duties, is still in the works too.
“Last week was difficult for the industry, and more so because of our strong relationships within the other teams at Respawn,” wrote Bit Reactor on Twitter. “But for those asking, we are still hard at work, and our game was unaffected by last week’s news.” That was all it had to say on the matter, likely because nothing of the game had even been shown off yet. But based on this confirmation, it’s likely that the game was a good bit further developed than the first-person shooter – it doesn’t make much sense for EA to not have cancelled it, otherwise.
The Star Wars strategy game was announced back in 2022 as a collaboration between Bit Reactor and Respawn, with Respawn also confirmed to be working on the at the time untitled Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, as well as the mysterious first-person shooter. Reports only emerged about the game possibly being about a Mandalorian last month, complete with supposed gameplay details. While it’s a shame for the game to be cancelled, at least the strategy title continuing development means there didn’t have to be as many cuts as there could have been.
