One of the most compelling aspects of being a Star Wars fan through the 90s and Aughts was the slew of video games. While there were a few flops, for the most part, they were exciting, well-made, and built on George Lucas’ universe in an incredibly entertaining way.
People will still seek out the all-time greats, like Knights of the Old Republic, Battlefront and Battlefront II, Star Wars Episode I: Racer, Empire at War, and several others. However, there was a distinct drought when Disney acquired the Star Wars label in 2012, but a May 2013 post had fans buzzing for top-tier Star Wars games.
May 6, 2023 marked ten years since the official announcement of Electronic Arts getting the exclusive rights to release Star Wars games and the widely reported end to their exclusivity window. So, how did the massive publisher do with its limited time behind one of the biggest names in entertainment?
Misfires aplenty with EA Star Wars
Few Star Wars games fans will have an unblemished reflection of the last ten years. Much has gone wrong, and its foundations may have been laid as far back as 2010. Archived by Games Radar, in an interview with Develop, the EA games chief of the time said, “I think that model is finished,” in reference to single-player story games, saying that all of the studio’s heads are aligned in focusing on online and multiplayer live service games.
It’s this stance that, naturally, led EA’s first Star Wars game to be a multiplayer-fixated Star Wars game. Star Wars: Battlefront (2015) had a great deal of hype, particularly because it copy-and-pasted its name from one of the most beloved of the old Star Wars games collection. It didn’t land too well, but not nearly as poorly as its 2017 sequel.
Even after the backlash of the Battlefront games, there was the Project Ragtag debacle. Much-loved studio Visceral Games (of the Dead Space series) and the creator of the Uncharted series, Amy Hennig, were creating a single-player scoundrel heist game. It received a lot of hype and praise in limited previews but it was cancelled and the studio was closed by EA in 2017.
The most infamous line to come out of this story, as seen in the Kotaku report, was, “FIFA Ultimate Team makes a billion dollars a year. Where’s your version of that?” Further cancellations followed, including Project Orca (an attempt to release the work done on Project Ragtag) and a Battlefront spin-off, Project Viking. Feeling the gaming community slipping away, they quickly pivoted, going big on single-player experiences with the Jedi games.
Over ten years, Electronic Arts’ studios released five Star Wars console and computer games and a mobile game, Galaxy of Heroes. Their site also lists Star Wars: The Old Republic, but this is the 2011 MMORPG developed by BioWare. Within this time frame, Aspyr has been winning over Star Wars fans with its ports of the classics Republic Commando, Jedi Knight, Force Unleashed, Racer, and Knights of the Old Republic games.
Did EA make Good Star Wars games?
The direct answer to this is sometimes. They certainly didn’t start well. Commissioning EA DICE to re-skin their Battlefield franchise into Star Wars: Battlefront led to a multiplayer-focused, shallow, and rather boring experience. It received a middling reception at launch and struggled to maintain a healthy player base.
As noted before, if they had just remastered the Pandemic Studios games (another studio that EA acquired and killed) and then infused a grander multiplayer part, it would have received heaps of praise and a dedicated player base until the release of the next one. Somehow, the next game would struggle even more.
Star Wars: Battlefront II, the game built to offer you a “sense of pride and accomplishment” by spending 40 hours to unlock Darth Vader – or by using microtransactions to skip the grind – is now infamous. The backlash was tremendous and mainstream, even to the extent that it had lawmakers and gambling authorities looking into loot boxes, which earn EA billions of dollars annually across their games rated 3+.
According to Forbes, Disney’s CEO likely told the EA CEO over the phone to kill the microtransactions that enable loot box gambling in the Star Wars game, and they did. Before this kicked up, though, EA was keen to showcase that it would have a single-player story mode; even this turned out to be a mostly-cinematic, one-way shooter that lasted six hours at best. The rest, of course, was all about multiplayer and getting you to open those loot boxes.
Now, while long brushed aside by the many, those who remained were treated to continued support and regular updates. In the end, a few years down the line, Star Wars: Battlefront II became a decent enough game, although still far more Battlefield than classic Battlefront.
This would be the turning point for EA and its all-in on live service Star Wars games.
For Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Respawn Entertainment were essentially given the reins on promotion and selling their single-player game, seemingly trying to be as detached from EA as possible. They even bragged on Twitter about it not containing loot boxes or microtransactions shortly before EA was arguing to a UK government committee that they’re called “surprise mechanics.”
Taking clear inspiration from Souls games, Jedi: Fallen Order can easily be classed among the top tiers of Star Wars games. The gameplay is fun and challenging, and the story takes you on an adventure that feels like it’s plucked from the Star Wars universe. While it didn’t make up for the Battlefronts, Jedi: Fallen Order did prove that at least one of EA’s studios could release a compelling Star Wars game.
Star Wars: Squadrons came next in 2020, arriving somewhat quietly. Its core mechanics of flight and dogfights in space were sound, but the Motive Studio creation lacked a fair bit of weight. Similarly to Battlefront in 2015, it lacked overall content and an engaging narrative. Squadrons wasn’t a poor outing, but it was a low-middling one.
The critical and commercial success of Jedi: Fallen Order in 2019 would only mean one thing: a sequel. We would learn that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor would arrive in 2023, and it did so to excellent reviews from critics. A strong successor to Jedi: Fallen Order, the tactical gameplay is still superb and even developed further to make it more of an intricate experience.
However, at launch, there were a fair bit of technical issues, and while it’s still quite refreshing to see an EA Star Wars game be narrative-driven, the story overall can lull at times and isn’t as gripping as in Fallen Order. Also, as much as it may be falling for nostalgia bait, the Darth Vader encounters are class.
Lastly, who could forget about the cash cow itself Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. It’s your run-of-the-mill turn-based mobile squads game filled with time and paywalls aplenty. When it was first released, it did seem to offer more gameplay than most of its peers, but you soon find yourself in the same drawn-out game loops. Still, in late 2021, PocketGamer.biz reported it as having made over $1.4 billion in microtransactions, a rousing success for EA.
Has EA Star Wars been a success?
Overall, in this one writer’s opinion, it has not been a success for gamers or the Star Wars brand, and perhaps not even for EA. Money has certainly been made in stacks as it always will with Star Wars video games, but EA’s public image has taken a huge hit, and it was Battlefront II that forced governments to start to scrutinise one of the company’s most profitable products: loot boxes. Belgium and Austria now label Ultimate Team as gambling.
Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi titles are certainly good games and can join the ranks of some of the best games set in a galaxy far, far away. To be fair, EA have recognized their success, too, and have made studio head Vince Zampella the lead on Star Wars games at the newly-split EA Entertainment. A first-person shooter is also said to be in the works at Respawn, but overall, the focus will now turn to other publishers.
Ubisoft has showcased its now highly-anticipated open-world game, Star Wars: Outlaws. Amy Hennig is also making her own Star Wars game at her new studio, Skydance New Media. Zynga’s got a Switch and mobile team-based multiplayer game on the way, Star Wars: Hunters, to compete with Galaxy of Heroes. Then there’s also the High Republic era game, Star Wars: Eclipse, in the works at Quantic Dream.
A couple of hits and a couple of big misses, EA as the sole publisher of Star Wars games has been middling if not underwhelming. It’s not so much the game count – as five in ten years isn’t bad – but the quality hasn’t been there for the most part. Luckily, we have many exciting projects ready to compete for the mantle of the best new Star Wars game, which can only be good for the fans.