EA and Disney struck up a massive deal in 2013, giving the game publisher the exclusive license to publish all “core” Star Wars titles
We haven’t seen any of the results of this partnership yet, but we know that Battlefront and at least two more big games are in development. The chances that we’ll see any of them before the end of the year have just shot up, with EA being added to the official Star Wars Celebration Exhibitors List.
What’s Star Wars Celebration?
Star Wars Celebration is a convention celebrating that galaxy far, far away. It features four days of exhibits, panels, autograph sessions, exclusive merch, and screenings; and will take place next month in Anaheim, California (just across the street from Disneyland).
What can we expect to see from EA?
I’ve been picking up a lot of chatter recently that EA isn’t waiting for E3 to show off Battlefront gameplay. Instead, they may be aiming for a spring reveal, and will be saving actual hands-on time for the game for E3 this summer.
Star Wars Celebration would be the perfect place to debut that gameplay footage, considering it will literally be an entire convention center full of Star Wars superfans. The convention’s panel schedule has not yet been revealed, but if EA pops up on there too, there’s a really good chance we’ll be seeing some gameplay next month.
How likely is this?
So far, EA has not given an official comment on the matter, so treat it as merely a possibility. That being said, a few weeks ago we heard that DICE was demoing the game for GameStop employees, so it’s likely that the project is in some kind of playable state.
Additionally, at last year’s E3, EA stated that we would “see more” of the game in spring 2015. That doesn’t necessarily mean a convention appearance, but we haven’t seen anything yet, so it’s entirely possible.
What about the other Star Wars games?
We know that in addition to DICE’s Battlefront revival, EA is also publishing Star Wars games developed by Visceral and BioWare. Considering we know next to nothing about these games though, and not even a vague release window has been set, I’m pretty uncertain that we’ll be seeing much out of those two project any sooner than E3 this year.
Well, I have at least one reason to head to Anaheim next month. When is it going down?
This year’s Star Wars Celebration will take place on April 16-19. Tickets are on sale now.
