Disney cleared Massive Entertainment to develop the Star Wars game after discussing its Avatar game.
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Disney was convinced to let Ubisoft Massive make an open world Star Wars game after it had an initial meeting with the developer – a meeting that was actually about Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
In one Interview with IGN Walt Disney Games SVP Sean Shoptaw revealed that he and his team met with Massive after Disney acquired Fox to discuss the Avatar video game project, which was already under development. Obviously this conversation had a big effect.
“The first time we met Massive about the Avatar game after we took over Fox, it really was the starting gun for the Star Wars game. There was such a match and such creative passion around the Star Wars IP from this team that it just came naturally to the relationship and it really led to the Star Wars game we announced not long ago. “
Massive’s next project after Avatar, announced at the beginning of the year, fulfills fans’ longstanding wishes for an open-world Star Wars game. Shoptaw was asked whose idea it was to try to please those who wanted an open structure for a Star Wars game, and it seems that both sides agreed from the start that this is the way to go:
“We definitely wanted an open world Star Wars game. That didn’t come exclusively from Massive. They certainly had a passion for it too, which made it a lot easier to move these conversations forward. But we are aware of the things that you have sketched out, right? We are aware of what the fans have been asking for and wishing for for a long time. “
So why did it take so long to grant these wishes? After all, EA has had the exclusive license to Star Wars games for many years, but a real open-world game never came into being.
“We wanted to do it with the right partner at the right time,” said Shoptaw. “I think it’s easy for us to jump fast, especially when we know there is a demand, but we also need to be disciplined about when we do these things and who we do them with.”
“As much as we had the ambition internally and externally to have an experience like this, we wanted it to come with the right partner at the right time. The worst thing we could do is get it wrong and do it in a way that doesn’t resonate with fans or doesn’t meet this bar. And so we feel like it’s worth the wait. We’re super, super excited about where this game is headed. I just got off the phone with the Massive team this morning and couldn’t be more excited about where they are going to take this game and what opportunities we have with this experience. “
While there is no reason to believe that one project will directly affect the other, it will be interesting to see how Massive will implement a truly open world structure in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. The upcoming game, slated for release in 2022, is being described as a first-person, open-world action-adventure game – and could potentially offer the Swedish developer some lessons on developing a game in this style before starting with the as-yet untitled Star Wars -Project is in full swing.
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