EA’s plan for Star Wars: CEO wants Arkham-style “deep, immersive storylines”, not film tie-ins

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Andrew Wilson likes Arkham Asylum! And we thought he was only into sports games and the Democracy 3 clone that is high-level management.

The EA CEO would like to replicate Warner Bros. and Rocksteady’s success with the Arkham series, if possible: greenlighting games which stand apart from the films but thread themselves nicely into the extended universe.

“What Warner Bros. did with Batman was take the core roots of that IP and manifest that inside the walls of Gotham City and delivered an interactive experience that had real ties to what you would see in the films and what you had read in the comics, while having its own life because it could provide such deep and more immersive storylines,” Wilson told Fortune, before an aid reminded him to stop for breath.

“When we look at the Star Wars properties that’s how we’re looking at it,” he continued. “We’re not trying to build a game that replicates the storyline of any particular film.”

Wilson emphasised that EA wouldn’t be making games based directly on Disney’s upcoming films. EA have a licensing deal with Disney which runs for ten years, but allows the mouse-house “certain rights” to develop mobile, social and tablet games – essentially the stuff that doesn’t concern us at PCGamesN.

For their part, EA have announced that Star Wars: Battlefront reboot under the direction of DICE – and have indicated that they’ll be giving Visceral and BioWare the reins to develop new series’ under the Star Wars name.

What sort of games are you hoping for? Do you need “deep and more immersive storylines”, or just a tie fighter waiting for a pilot?

Thanks, CVG.