EA has reportedly cancelled its third Star Wars game in as many years

Electronic Arts has reportedly cancelled its third in-development Star Wars game in as many years.

According to Kotaku’s Jason Schreier, EA Vancouver and Criterion had been planning a spin-off to the Star Wars: Battlefront series for release this year, codenamed Viking.

However, it’s claimed that once EA executives discovered the release timing for Viking was unrealistic, it decided to cancel the project.

If true, Viking’s cancellation marks the third Star Wars project EA has cancelled since 2017.

EA’s Visceral studio spent two years developing a Star Wars heist game called Ragtag under director Amy Hennig (Uncharted), before it was cancelled.

Another Star Wars project, ‘Orca’, was then spun off of Ragtag and reused some assets. It was then also cancelled in 2018.

According to Schreier, Viking was designed as a spinoff of the Star Wars: Battlefront series with open-world elements.

The plan was also for EA to bring in UK-based Criterion as a co-developer, but problems related to cross-country development are said to have contributed to the project missing its 2020 target date.

EA confirmed this month it has handed Need for Speed development duties back to Criterion as it plans to restructure Ghost Games, which has developed the last four entries in the racing series.

The most recent Star Wars game, Jedi: Fallen Order had sold more than eight million copies by the end of January 2020, exceeding EA’s expectations