While details on Massive’s upcoming Star Wars game remains sparse — only officially announcing that it is a story-driven, open-world adventure — the job listings indicate some areas of focus the developers are looking into.
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For example, in Massive’s listing for Senior Progression Game Designer, the studio is looking for applicants with “Absolute passion for playing and making games, especially RPG and Action-Adventure games” as well as “proven experience working with progression systems and balancing[.]” Massive’s previous series, The Division, is a shooter-RPG with live service elements, loot, and RPG-style progression. Could these elements appear in Massive’s Star Wars game? There’s at least a role for progression experts at the studio.A listing for Senior Writer is looking for applicants that are skilled in “Researching and writing narrative elements to anchor a reality-based narrative within an existing IP,” which we now know is Star Wars. The “reality-based” narrative element does seem to hint at the tone Massive is shooting for in regards to its Star Wars project, though without concrete details these job listings are only surface-level.
Source: Massive. Captured by IGN.
A Cinematic Narrative Designer position also asks for experience with “linear and non-linear narrative structures” – this could speak to non-linear quest design, or the game’s wider story being told out of chronological order in some regard.
Earlier today, the newly formed Lucasfilm Games and Ubisoft Massive announced the two are working on a new Star Wars game. Other than the announcement that it will run on Massive’s Snowdrop engine, details are sparse on the canon Star Wars game.In 2013, EA and Disney announced a multi-year licensing agreement that gave EA exclusive rights to publish Star Wars games developed by its internal teams. But Lucasfilm Games will approach things differently, working with developer partners on core games.
Games aren’t limited to just Star Wars, either. MachineGames and Bethesda’s Todd Howard are working on an Indiana Jones game under the same Lucasfilm Games umbrella.
Read our in-depth dive on how Star Wars games will change and evolve now that EA is no longer its exclusive publisher.
Matt T.M. Kim is a reporter for IGN. You can reach him on Twitter @lawoftd.
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