Yesterday Ubisoft announced a new open-world game in the Star Wars universe. Immediately after that, the company’s shares rose in price. However, the project is likely to be released only after Disney‘s exclusive contract with Electronic Arts ends.The Swedish studio Massive Entertainment, known for the franchise The Division, is developing a new game.
It will be an open-world story game developed in partnership with Lucasfilm Games on the Snowdrop engine. There are no other details about the project yet.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot Commented on yesterday’s announcement: “This is the beginning of a long-term collaboration with Disney and Lucasfilm Games, and we are excited to work together and build on the legacy of Lucasfilm to create a game that will appeal to Star Wars fans.
Immediately after that, the company’s shares on the American stock exchange jumped by 6.1%.
Against the background of this news, many wondered what would happen to the contract between Disney and Electronic Arts. Since 2013, EA has exclusive rights to publish games in the Star Wars universe. The contract is designed for 10 years and, given the announcement of Ubisoft, it is unlikely to be extended.
From this we can also conclude that the new Massive Entertainment game will be released no earlier than 2023. At the same time, Electronic Arts announced that it will continue to do projects on “Star Wars”. One of them will surely be the sequel to Fallen Order.
“Our talented teams have created some of the most successful games in the history of the Star Wars franchise, including Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars: Battlefront. We love this universe and plan to create more games that players can enjoy,” EA said in an official statement.
The relaunch of Lucasfilm Games, which George Lucas founded almost 40 years ago, became known this week. It is under this brand that all future projects on “Star Wars” and other franchises of the company will be released.
This week, the Lucasfilm gaming division also announced another title project about the adventures of Indiana Jones, produced by Todd Howard and being developed by Machine Games studio (the creators of the Wolfenstein relaunch).