Almost immediately after Disney resurrected the Lucasfilm Games brand as the official home of Star Wars games, signaling the coming end of Electronic Arts' exclusivity deal, Ubisoft revealed that it was working on a new open-world Star Wars game, headed up by its Massive Entertainment studio. It's a pretty big deal—you might say it gives us new hope for Star Wars games.
It's reasonable to assume that Massive will be all-in on the project, but what does it mean for the future of its other open-world shooter series, The Division? During a quarterly conference call today, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said that taking on a major new Star Wars game will not force it to halt work on The Division.
"We are very happy to be partnering again with Lucasfilm Games. The project will be headed by our Massive studio, who will make the most of their cutting edge technology, including the Snowdrop engine, to deliver a groundbreaking Star Wars adventure. We are very proud of this collaboration," Guillemot said.
"The Massive studio is a large studio, and they are also collaborating with lots of studios all over the world ... You're going to see more on The Division in this year and the year after."
As for the Star Wars game, it should come as no surprise that it's way too early in the process to even have a hint of a release target at this point. "The game is at an early stage of development, and so we have to wait a bit before telling you more about [launch] timing," Ubisoft CFO Frederick Duguet said.
It's possible that Ubi's Star Wars game won't be out until sometime after mid-2023, which is when EA's exclusive Star Wars license is set to expire.
