Electronic Arts Inc. video game publisher. has canceled a game under development at its Montreal office for nearly six years, according to people familiar with the matter.
The game, code named Gaia, was first discontinued in 2015, but has not been officially announced or given a title. Since then, EA executives have leaked drip information, sharing tidbits every few years on what they described as a sleek new franchise.
Last summer in a video showing future games, EA took a few seconds of photos from Gaia, describing it as “a new, innovative game that puts power and creativity in your hands.”
The cancellation is part of a recent resource move by the company as it evaluates projects and decides which ones to move forward. Earlier this month, the publisher reviewed ongoing games including Gaia and a new version of the badly-received online game Anthem, which was released off as well. Gaia’s development was turbulent and the game went through at least one major remake, which may have been a reason to go over, according to the people, who called anonymously because they had no authority to speak to the media.
Seeking feedback, EA spokesman John Reseburg said, “We have a deep and strong pipeline of new content with over 35 new games in various stages of inspiration and development. ”
Gaia came under fire in 2015 when EA hired video game business chief executive Jade Raymond to start a new studio called Motive in Montreal. Raymond, who is best known for overseeing the Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs series while at Ubisoft Entertainment SA, teamed up with EA to make open-world-like action-adventure games, start with Gaia.
In the years that followed, Motive went through some growing pains. The studio included staff from BioWare’s other Montreal office, BioWare, which was shut down in 2017 after the ill-fated Andromeda Mass Effect gameplay. A team at Motive has also been assigned to work on the Star Wars Battlefront II action game, which also came out in 2017.
By early 2018, the Gaia team had embraced the creative directions from Star Wars Battlefront II and faced cultural conflict as a result. The tension ended with the game’s top directors leaving for Ubisoft, which also has a large office in Montreal. Gaia was then restarted, the people said. Raymond left EA in the fall of 2018.
Movement will remain intact. The studio has been successful with a smaller project in Star Wars Squadrons, a battleship simulator that came out last fall, and which has continued to help with other games across EA.