EA opens DICE studio in LA, will make Star Wars games

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/05/15/ea-opens-star-wars-centric-dice-studio-in-la/

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EA may be in the news lately for cutting its workforce or winning anti-awards, but they’re now doing a bit of reshuffling thanks to a huge deal they recently secured with Disney.

EA has the exclusive rights to publish all Star Wars-related video games that aren’t mobile or social, which is a huge get considering how much of a resurgence the franchise is likely to have in the wake of Disney’s new movies (as if Star Wars was ever not big, though).

In order to specifically deal with this opportunity, EA is opening a new branch of DICE in LA (using some of the old Medal of Honor staff), nestled right near Activision’s Infinity Ward and Treyarch. DICE is based in Stockholm, but the new LA office should eventually have 60 to its name, with a dedicated focus on new Star Wars IPs.

What this means is that yes, these new Star Wars titles will use the rather fantastic Frostbite 3 engine. A report says that EA is considering either making entirely new stories in the Star Wars universe, or expanding on stories currently in the cannon. No word on what sort of games Disney will oblige them to make in conjunction with the movies, but that’s still a long ways off.

This brings us back to a list I wrote a little while back about possible Star Wars games EA could make. Chief among them was DICE attempting to bring Battlefront 3 back to life, as that seemed like something they’d be comfortable doing. Now that we officially know that DICE and subsequently Frostbite are on board for new Star Wars games, this very much seems like a real possibility.

Interestingly, there’s no mention of another EA brand in all this, Bioware. They’ve created some of the best (and arguably one of the worst) Star Wars games for EA in the past from KOTOR to SWTOR, but I find it a touch odd they’re not even mentioned here.

Obviously EA can have two of its divisions working on what will likely be very profitable Star Wars games, but we haven’t heard that Bioware will actually be taking the reins on a new Star Wars title yet. We assume we’ll get some sort of Star Wars RPG out of them, and I imagine whatever DICE gives us will be vastly different than anything we’ve seen out of Bioware.

It’s an exciting time to be a Star Wars fan, and I have faith that given the right resources DICE has it in them to make some damn good games set in that far away universe. I look forward to hearing and seeing more.

blue tint battlefront pls