Electronic Arts locks the door and throws the keys away regarding the team behind the Dead Space series.

Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios’ vice president, Patrick Söderlund announced that Visceral Games, known for games such as Future Cop: LAPD, several James Bond games, Battlefield: Hardline and Dead Space, will be „ramping down and closed.” Their in-development Star Wars game, codenamed Ragtag, is being sent over to EA Vancouver, who have already been working on it. With this change comes along another shift: the story-based, linear adventure is being shaped towards a „broader experience,” and the release date is also pushed back from its fiscal 2019 launch window, too.

Here’s the announcement: „In its current form, [the Star Wars title] was shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game. Throughout the development process, we have been testing the game concept with players, listening to the feedback about what and how they want to play and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace. It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design. We will maintain the stunning visuals, authenticity in the Star Wars universe, and focus on bringing a Star Wars story to life. Importantly, we are shifting the game to be a broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining central elements of the game to give players a Star Wars adventure of greater depth and breadth to explore.”

Kotaku got a hold of an internal email sent by Söderlund to the employees: „A development team from across Worldwide Studios will take over the development of Ragtag, led by the EA Vancouver team that has already been working on the project. Steve Anthony will lead this team, and we will use much of the work that has been done to date by Visceral – the assets of Ragtag that have already been built will be the foundation of this new game.”

Hope you didn’t forget about Amy Hennig. The former Uncharted director joined Visceral in 2014! Regarding her situation, an Electronic Arts spokesperson had this sentence to say: „We are in discussions with Amy about her next move.” That doesn’t sound too good…

Electronic Arts has chopped another team off – earlier this year, they downgraded the devs of Mass Effect: Andromeda, BioWare Montreal, into just a mere support team…

Source: Electronic Arts, Kotaku, Gematsu