EA’s CEO teases ‘very exciting’ projects in development at Respawn

Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson has teased exciting unannounced projects currently in development at Respawn.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference on Wednesday, Wilson praised Respawn’s work on the Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi series, before saying there’s more to come from the studio.

EA acquired Titanfall maker Respawn in a 2017 deal worth up to $455 million – a sum that turned out to be something of a bargain for the publisher, with Apex Legends alone delivering over $2 billion in net bookings in the first three years following its February 2019 release.

“We haven’t done that many acquisitions, we’ve done a few,” Wilson said. “Respawn of course was maybe one of the most incredible acquisitions ever done in the industry.

“They’re an incredible team and they’ve created incredible value for us, for our shareholders, and certainly for these global communities of players across Apex and the Jedi series.

“And you should imagine that there’s some other things going on at Respawn that we’re very excited about, that we’re not going to talk about but that we’re very excited about just given the quality of that group.”

In an interview with Axios in May, Respawn boss Vince Zampella said a “very small” team was in the early stages of developing an original IP at the studio.

The “skunkworks” team is being led by Steve Fukuda, the game director of Titanfall and Titanfall 2. “The mission is to find the fun in something new,” the studio’s co-founder said.

The director of the Star Wars Jedi series, Stig Asmussen, has said he hopes to make a trilogy of games, and Respawn is currently recruiting team members for what is presumably a third entry in the franchise.

Further reading

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Respawn’s boss says he would ‘love to see’ a Titanfall 3

But the Apex Legends studio is "not working on anything currently"

Respawn is also working on at least two more Star Wars games. One is an internally developed first-person shooter helmed by former LucasArts veteran and Medal of Honor co-creator Peter Hirschmann.

The other is a strategy game developed in collaboration with Bit Reactor, a new studio formed by veterans of XCOM and Civilization maker Firaxis Games.