With Disney Interactive and LucasArts sort of striking out recently (and shutting down in the case of the latter) and revealing they were looking to farm out the Star Wars license, Electronic Arts today had a big announcement to make.
Disney and EA have officially struck a multi-year deal for Star Wars games for the “core gaming audience, spanning all interactive platforms and the most popular game genres”. In other words, we’ll get some big budget console and PC Star Wars games from them. Disney retains rights to publish some of their own mobile, social, tablet and online games. In other words, Star Wars will be everywhere.
According to the announcement, EA has several of their top developers ready to work on Star Wars titles including DICE, BioWare and Visceral Games.
Check out the announcement below.
The Walt Disney Company and Electronic Arts Inc. today announced a new multi-year exclusive licensing agreement to develop and publish globally new games based on Star Wars characters and storylines.
Under the agreement, EA will develop and publish new Star Wars titles for a core gaming audience, spanning all interactive platforms and the most popular game genres, while Disney will retain certain rights to develop new titles within the mobile, social, tablet and online game categories.
?This agreement demonstrates our commitment to creating quality game experiences that drive the popularity of the Star Wars franchise for years to come,? said John Pleasants, Co-President of Disney Interactive. ?Collaborating with one of the world?s premier game developers will allow us to bring an amazing portfolio of new Star Wars titles to our fans around the world.?
?Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,? said EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. ?Three of our top studios will fulfill that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop for the Star Wars franchise. The new experiences we create may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories and gameplay.?
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.