'Star Wars' Video Games: See What EA Has Coming Soon, Including Some VR X-Wing Action
Electronic Arts has a huge deal with Lucasfilm to produce a variety of video games based on Star Wars in the coming years. They kicked off their endeavor in a big way with DICE's update of Star Wars Battlefront last fall, and there's a follow-up coming next year (as well as even more expansions throughout this year up through December). But that was just the beginning.
At the big E3 expo for video games that kicked off this past weekend, EA unveiled a video showing off some of the new Star Wars video games they're working on for the next few years, including a couple that we really don't know much about at all. Plus, you can get a glimpse of the Bespin and Death Star expansion packs coming to Star Wars Battlefront, and a quick glimpse at some kind of VR X-Wing project in the works as well.
Here's EA's tease of the Star Wars video games and expansions coming in the next few years:
In addition to continued support and updates for Star Wars Battlefront, you'll also see there were glimpses of stuff for Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes as well as Star Wars: The Old Republic. That's fine for all the people who play those games, but we're interested in the new titles on the way, and thankfully we got a little tease of what we can expect.
Visceral Games - Untitled Project
The title of this video game is currently unknown, but it's already expected to be delivered sometime in 2018. Visceral Games is the studio behind the Dead Space video game franchise and Battlefield: Hardline, and they're working with former Uncharted director Amy Hennig to make this new Star Wars game. The third-person adventure game is said to have "an original, authentic narrative in the Star Wars universe."
Judging by the visuals we see on display, there's a chance that it could take place during the original trilogy timeline, or perhaps even during a time between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. At first glance, this could be Jakku with the Imperial army preparing to occupy the planet as we saw in Star Wars Battlefront, but concept art appears to show twin suns, which implies this game will happen, at least in part, on Tatooine. Plus, that same piece of concept art appears to have soldiers wearing helmets similar to the one Agent Kallus wears on Star Wars Rebels. So maybe this will take place between Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: A New Hope.
Respawn Entertainment - Untitled Project
The Titanfall game series studio has some people from Call of Duty's Infinity Ward working on bringing this game to life. Even less is known about this project than the Visceral Games title, but the video above did contain some motion-capture footage of two people battling with lightsabers. This is also a third-person adventure game that "takes place in a different timeline we have yet to explore with our EA Star Wars titles."
As of now, there's no indication as to when this game is meant to be released.
Criterion Games and DICE - Star Wars VR Projects
Finally, for those who are already on board with VR technology, you'll be happy to hear there are some official Star Wars VR projects on the horizon. First of all, Criterion Games is working with DICE on some kind of Star Wars VR project after helping them with the speeder bike tutorial portion of Star Wars Battlefront. Almost nothing is known about this title except that it will involve VR, so we'll just have to be patient.
In addition, DICE is also working on an exclusive Star Wars Battlefront VR mission that will be playable on PlayStation VR later this year. That's where the footage of the player with the VR headset and the screen showing an X-Wing cockpit comes into play. That's something that will be quite the video game experience when it's released, but it sounds like you'll need a PlayStation to make it happen.
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So there you have it. EA has a lot in the works for new Star Wars video games, but it's going to be awhile before we see more from any of these titles, and even longer before we're actually able to play them. But since we'll have plenty of other Star Wars goods to hold us over until then, the wait shouldn't be all that hard to sit through.
Thanks to Star Wars Underworld, The Verge and Gamespot for extra information about these games.