2) Star Wars 1313
Oh sure, we’re all happy now that Disney decided to take the bold move of snapping up Lucasfilm for a cool $4.05 billion, but its successful revival of the film universe didn’t come without cost. LucasArts, a subsidiary of the company responsible for internally developing video games, both based on Star Wars and completely original material, was put on ice, following the acquisition, raising fears that Disney intended to bring its tenure to an end, therefore threatening the continued existence of one particular title.
Officially announced back in 2012 at E3, Star Wars 1313 was to be an origin story, of sorts, for the galaxy’s most feared bounty hunter, Boba Fett, a tale which was planned to take place in his early adulthood and set entirely in the seedy underbelly of Coruscant’s criminal underworld. Development was far along enough for LucasArts to provide a series of screenshots and gameplay footage, each depicting a visually stunning and authentic-feeling world for players to explore, the focus on gadgetry and gun combat, in particular, promising to be a refreshing change from the Force Unleashed series, released just a few years prior
But then the bad news arrived. Despite assurances from LucasArts that 1313 would see the light of day, Disney confirmed several months later that development had ceased and that the studio as a whole had been largely dismantled and repurposed into a licensing model. EA received the rights to produce Star Wars games for the PC and console market shortly thereafter.
Disney has never ruled out outsourcing Star Wars 1313 to another studio (in light of its deal with EA, only it could currently do so), but given the long period of silence since, it’s not looking likely to happen anytime soon, which is definitely a bummer.