Two Years

Two years, was the gap between EA cancelling Visceral's five year development of their highly anticipated 3rd Person Star Wars action-adventure (led by many of Dead Space & Amy Hennig of the Uncharted Trilogy) and the release of Respawn's Jedi Fallen Order.

Listening to recent podcasts featuring former employees of Visceral's last project, and recalling various articles of the time about internal meetings, it's evident EA wanted to realize their intentions with Battlefront 2. Ever since FIFA's implementation of Ultimate Team micro-transactions, the company had been on steady track of live-service games, from Mass Effect Multiplayer to Battlefield.

If the rumors are true, then Visceral's milestone meetings were met, not with pleased expressions over the company's progress, but executives wondering "where's the recurrent payments?"

Recurrent payments that as far as I'm aware of, Fallen Order doesn't have.

Which raises the question, what would've happened if Visceral had developed their supposed masterpiece a little bit later in their lives? Would EA had back to back successes with the brand being headed by Respawn & Visceral? Would it still have been handed to EA Canada to implement tacked on payments?

But I guess the real question in that hypothetical, is if Visceral would've lived long enough to conceive this game later in the first place? Much of the company's demise had to do with their ever-changing staff after taking on Battlefield Hardline, with many of its key leads leaving due to a disinterest in first-person multiplayer shooters. After that point, it would've proved more challenging for Visceral to make a great singleplayer action-game, after hiring many whose expertise didn't lay in that genre.

Or perhaps Visceral's fate was rigged from the start.

Maybe EA's sudden experimentation with Squadrons & Fallen Order required Battlefront 2's failure. Maybe EA Canada's failure to convert Visceral's baby is why passion projects are being invited. Maybe Apex Legends gave Respawn extra leeway.

Nobody will ever truly know, but they're certainly questions I hope are answered for certain, because if your fate as a developer is so closely attached to other games, studios, and executives, then knowing the real reasons behind these decisions could at least act as a warning for the future.