Visceral Games, the developer behind the Dead Space games and Battlefield Hardline, is being closed by EA.

EA has brought the hammer down on developer Visceral Games. Originally EA Redwood Shores, the studio was founded in 1998 and worked on numerous games including The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 007: From Russia with Love, and The Simpsons Game before being rebranded as Visceral Games. As Visceral, the studio brought us the Dead Space games, Battlefield Hardline, and Dante's Inferno. Now, the studios is being relegated to the history books.

EA has confirmed that they are “ramping down and closing” Visceral Games. The studio's Star Wars project, which was to be an action-adventure single player game, will be refocused. It is unknown if Amy Hennig, who joined the studio in 2014 to develop the project, will continue on.

"Our Visceral studio has been developing an action-adventure title set in the Star Wars universe, EA's Patrick Söderlund  wrote in a blog post. "In its current form, it was shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game. Throughout the development process, we have been testing the game concept with players, listening to the feedback about what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace. It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design. We will maintain the stunning visuals, authenticity in the Star Wars universe, and focus on bringing a Star Wars story to life. Importantly, we are shifting the game to be a broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining central elements of the game to give players a Star Wars adventure of greater depth and breadth to explore."

A worldwide develop team from across EA Worldwide Studios will take over from Visceral Game. EA Vancouver, who have already been working on the project, will lead the team. The game will also likely be pushed back from it's fiscal year 2019 release window. As for the Visceral employees, EA is working on shifting as many of them as possible to other EA projects and teams.

We wish the employees at Visceral Games the best, and will update you should any more info about this situation be released.