EA canceled a third Star Wars game, codenamed Viking, before it was ever revealed

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Last year, EA canceled an unannounced Star Wars project that was once envisioned as a Battlefront spinoff. Though EA never revealed the game was in development nor has it announced the subsequent cancellation, the news comes from Kotaku’s (opens in new tab) always reliable Jason Schreier who spoke with six anonymous sources close to the project.

Codenamed Star Wars Viking, the game was intended to salvage some of the assets from Visceral’s canceled Star Wars project (opens in new tab), codenamed Ragtag. When Visceral closed, some of those assets were to be used at EA Vancouver for a different Star Wars game, codenamed Orca. That project fell apart too, however, and eventually turned into Viking, a “smaller” Star Wars project eyeballing a 2020 launch, but when it became clear EA would not be able to hit that launch window, it canceled Star Wars Viking as well.

EA Vancouver had prototyped some ideas before EA Criterion was brought in to take over, but sources told Schreier that the project fast became a problem of “too many cooks” in the kitchen, and the timeline became unmanageable. EA was unwilling to delay launch, we expect because it found it critical to release Viking alongside the Xbox Series X and PS5 this fall, and so in the absence of that possibility, the publisher canceled its third Star Wars project under its current licensing agreement with Disney.

Schreier also dropped two more bombshell news items regarding EA and Star Wars. He said two more games in the franchise are currently in development: a Jedi Fallen Order sequel and a “smaller, more unusual project at EA Motive.” 

It’s been a tumultuous six years for EA since acquiring the rights to Star Wars games on console and PC. Its time as Star Wars game caretaker has thus far been defined by Battlefront 2’s pay-to-win controversy and a host of cancellations. Jedi Fallen Order was the biggest critical hit (opens in new tab) for the publisher and its most recent effort, so it makes sense that Respawn would be back at work on a sequel. Perhaps EA can turn the corner in the new generation and give fans the Star Wars stories we all crave.

For happier times, let’s look at the 10 best Star Wars games of all time (opens in new tab).