EA Hasn’t Lost Its Rights To The Star Wars IP, Just The Exclusivity Deal

With the announcement this week that Lucasfilm Games and Ubisoft will be working together on a story-driven open-world Star Wars game, I’ve seen a few in the community confused about what this means for EA going forward. .

EA will still be working with Lucasfilms games in the future, likely for more multiplayer projects after the (long) success of Battlefront 2 and the average release of Star Wars: Squadrons. It’s just that it’s not right only be EA making Star Wars games in the future.

✅ We love Star Wars.
✅ We look forward to continuing our partnership with Lucasfilm Games.
✅ We are making more Star Wars games.
✅ BD-1 is still the cutest.

– Electronic arts (@EA) January 13, 2021

So there is no immediate cause for celebration. EA will continue to play its part in the future Star Wars IP whether you are happy with it or not. Yes, they may have been responsible for the success of Battlefront 2 in the end, but the initial hatred for the MTX system in this game drove many fans away.

Overall, it’s good news that more studios will be able to get involved in Star Wars, as the potential is inherently limitless. The canon of the Star Wars universe is enormous.

Lucasfilms has previously stated that they have a team ready to “direct the stories” of the games, which suggests they will be working in Universe Canon whenever a studio develops a game.

It also means that Lucasfilm can protect their IP and brand without much interference from the studios. Hopefully that takes away some of the more foul-mouthed microtransactions and that they’ve, in a way, learned from the failure of Battlefront 2.

Others have argued that Ubisoft is not much better than EA in terms of business practices. Recent allegations of sexual abuse and malpractice led to a months-long investigation into Ubisoft’s senior management, but the issue has since been resolved, culprits charged and apologies released.

In terms of microtransactions, Ubisoft has run into them over the years, but most of their recent games have featured small-scale microtransactions, usually only for certain cosmetic items. Not as blatant as EA’s practices in Battlefront games.

Finally, a lot of people are eager to see what Ubisoft can do with a Star Wars game. Assassin’s Creed IP made some pretty cool games, and Valhalla was one of my personal favorites from the last year.