EA plans to develop its existing Star Wars series alongside new games

Electronic Arts has touched upon its future plans for Star Wars games following the news that it no longer has exclusive rights to make titles based on the franchise.

Lucasfilm recently signalled that its Star Wars exclusivity deal with EA was over—or at least coming to an end—by partnering with Ubisoft on a new open-world game.

The project will be developed by Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment (The Division), marking the first time that a company outside of EA has worked on a Star Wars game in eight years.

Responding to the news in January, EA said it took pride in its “long-standing collaboration with Lucasfilm Games, which will continue for years to come”.

Adding some colour to those comments during EA’s third quarter earnings call on Tuesday, CEO Andrew Wilson said the company will continue to invest in Star Wars games new and old.

“In the context of Star Wars, we won’t be announcing new things here but what I would say is that, if you look at our history with Star Wars, we’ve had a long and very profitable relationship, first with LucasArts or Lucasfilm, and then with Lucasfilm as part of Disney.

“We have generated a number of great franchises: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Galaxy of Heroes, Battlefront, Jedi: Fallen Order and most recently Squadrons. That represents over $3 billion life-to-date net bookings and 52 million games sold, and Galaxy of Heroes is a billion-dollar franchise.

“As we’ve established these very strong parts of that franchise,” Wilson added, “you should expect that we will continue to invest in those as well as some new experiences across platforms for the future.”

EA previously said that its Star Wars exclusivity deal—signed in 2013—would last for 10 years and its comms director claimed in January that the agreement is still in place, suggesting Ubisoft’s game won’t be released before 2023.

EA suggested in May 2020 that it would create a Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order sequel after Respawn‘s game surpassed expectations with over 10 million sales.

And the following month, Wilson said the company intended to “double down” on Star Wars games following a string of successful releases.

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