While many will no doubt know EA Motive for its work on last year's Star Wars Squadrons, the team has been working on a much bigger project over the last six years. Codenamed "Gaia," a trailer teasing the game at last summer's EA Play claimed it was an "ambitious and innovative new game that puts the power and creativity in your hands."
Gaia was first shown to the world in 2015, with it being announced that former Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs developer Jade Raymond would be overseeing the project. It later re-emerged at the aforementioned 2020 EA Play, where it was included in a brief tech showcase that highlighted several state-of-the-art concepts in the works at the publisher's various studios. Although little was shown of the game, it looked to be something new from the company, with the tech demo showing the player interacting with physics objects and soaring through a city skyrise. EA's Chief Studios Officer, Laura Miele, said that it would've been "impossible without next-gen technology."
Unfortunately, Bloomberg's Jason Schierer reported today that the game has officially been canceled after six years in development. The decision was allegedly made due to a shift in resources over at EA, with the team making some difficult decisions regarding which games it was going to move forward with. This led to the recently reported shut-down of Bioware's Anthem overhaul and it seems Gaia shared the same fate.
According to Schreier's report, there were some slight "growing pains" over at EA Motive since the beginning of 2017. Not only did the studio welcome the team from Bioware Montreal after it closed down following the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda, but it went on to absorb a number of the creative leads from Star Wars Battlefront 2 after collaborating with DICE on the shooter. The journalist notes a "culture clash" that resulted in return. Regardless, the studio went on to develop an incredibly successful title in Star Wars: Squadrons, which has since become a well-received homage to old school Star Wars games like Rogue Squadron.
Gaia definitely looked to be an exciting project for the studio and one that's disappointing to lose, however, Motive will continue to operate as a studio and work on more titles going forward. The news follows several big changes at EA this week, with the publisher reportedly deciding to drop Dragon Age 4's live service component and canceling Anthem's major rebrand. The latter would've seen a dramatic overhaul of the game akin to No Man's Sky's post-launch updates, with BioWare wanting to salvage the poorly received multiplayer game and achieve the ambitious vision the team set out with.
EA Motive's Gaia has been canceled.
Source: Bloomberg