EA’s Star Wars is Like Uncharted

The new Star Wars game currently in production via a collaboration between EA and Visceral Games has been described by its creative director as a ‘classic pulp action adventure experience’ in the same vein as Uncharted.

Speaking at the recent Star Wars Celebration expo, reported by GameSpot, Amy Hennig spoke about the creative direction the team at Visceral Games is approaching the new IP. The writer, who worked on the first three games in Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series, said that she is following the same sorts of processes as when she worked on the critically acclaimed PlayStation games.

“The process that I’ve been using is really similar to what I did with Uncharted, to be honest,” she said. “It’s the idea that there’s sort of a swashbuckling charm to the thing. There’s humor and buoyancy but at the same time there’s stakes and jeopardy.”

Hennig also discussed the daunting task of taking on the mantle of the Star Wars franchise. Speaking on the collaborations between Visceral and Lucasfilm, Hennig said that because the content – in terms of the storyline, characters, locations, enemies and technology – will be originally created for the game, the content must ‘sit authentically alongside the stuff people know now’.

“You need to deconstruct the films so you know how to reconstruct them in an interactive context as gameplay,” Hennig commented. “The end goal is by the time the player has finished playing they feel like they really did play a Star Wars film. [You need to know] what are all the component parts that make up a Star Wars story.”

The upcoming Star Wars game, of which few details are known, has also taken influence from other similar examples of the genre. Humour and buoyancy’ are a large part of the tone, and Hennig mentioned that the new IP will also have such a tone, like as in the films, Uncharted, and Indiana Jones, Uncharted’s main influence. She also noted that the ‘breezy urgency’ of high stakes and the ensemble cast of collaborative heroes were key aspects of the Star Wars franchise, and would be recreated in-game.

In addition to the Visceral Games’ Star Wars, EA has two more major Star Wars games in the works: a new Battlefront and a third-person action adventure by Respawn.