Electronic Arts, the sole company currently licensed to make Star Wars video games, is seeking a Lead Online Designer to join its Vancouver team and help deliver a “unique online experience” for its much-anticipated AAA project set in that galaxy far, far away.
The phrasing used in this latest job listing suggests EA’s mysterious new project will feature a rich narrative for single players, in addition to online material. Specifically, the Lead Online Designer must “work with the Creative Director, Game Director, and Lead Writer to align all connected features with the single-player narrative and gameplay into a cohesive experience.”
EA’s proposed format, a seamless blend of internet-based and story-driven content, is much like that of Destiny, showing a major change in direction from Visceral Games’ cancelled Star Wars project, codenamed Ragtag.
For those unaware, Ragtag was to be a single player, open world experience set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, and when it was canned in 2017, EA became the subject of much controversy. Information about Ragtag‘s plot and characters have since been made public, and it now seems a desire to also incorporate online play is what necessitated the game’s demise.
The publisher justified its cancellation of Ragtag by saying it wished to give players a more versatile product, though one wonders if EA Vancouver’s new Star Wars video game will incorporate elements of the aforementioned canned project into its narrative. Even if it doesn’t, though, the prospect of delving into an original story either alone or with other people over the internet is equally intriguing and certainly has us curious to learn more about what the team is cooking up.