Update Electronic Arts is closing down the studio and handing its Star Wars project to EA Vancouver to shift it from a linear adventure to a 'broad experience.'
Electronic Arts is in the process of closing down Visceral Games, the California-based studio best known for the Dead Space games and, most recently, Battlefield Hardline.
The studio had been working on a yet-untitled Star Wars project that EA says will be shifted from the linear game Visceral had been developing to a “broad experience” under the EA Vancouver team. EA has also scuttled plans to release the game in its 2019 fiscal year.
With the game handed off, EA says it is “ramping down and closing” the Visceral studio itself, and moving “as many of the team as possible to other projects and teams at EA."
Visceral Games was founded as EA Redwood Shores in 1998 and renamed to Visceral in 2009. The studio itself was behind the development of four Dead Space titles, both Godfather and Godfather II, and Dante’s Inferno.
As always, if you or someone you know has been affected by layoffs or a studio closure, you can email Gamasutra to share your story confidentially.
Update: According to Kotaku-published excerpts of an email reportedly sent to EA employees, the Star Wars game Visceral was leading development on (codenamed "Ragtag") will now be overseen by Steve Anthony, an executive producer at EA Vancouver.
It's yet unclear what this means for game dev veteran Amy Hennig, who left Naughty Dog in 2014 to join Visceral and serve as creative director on the Star Wars project.
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