We Could Make Better Star Wars Game: Former Producer of Visceral Games on How EA Killed the Studio

Visceral Games’ Star Wars action is the latest in a series of canceled franchise projects, and EA disbanded the studio responsible for the iconic Dead Space series after the project was closed. For a long time, there was almost no information about the failed game – only that its developments were used by Respawn when creating the Jedi Fallen Order.

In an interview with Eurogamer, former Visceral producer Zach Mumbach talks in detail about the canceled project. And at the same time, he remembers the last days of the once-famous studio, which EA destroyed with its strange leadership.

Mumbach recalls that the problems with Project Ragtag – which is what the game had a production name – began even before development began. The fact is that Visceral had to quickly switch from their previous project, Battlefield: Hardline, and this was not easy at all.

At [EA] they did everything very out of time. First they thought, “Oh, we have a studio with our own engine that makes high-quality singleplayer games – the Dead Space series – let’s take it, give it Frostbite, and make it Battlefield.” Ok, okay. I stayed and worked on it.

Zach Mumbach
Producer Visceral Games

Due to Battlefield: Hardline, many developers – experts in narrative single-player games – have left the studio. Instead, the management had to look for those who know how to make multiplayer shooters – after all, Visceral did not have such experience.

And after we release Hardline, they [EA] say, “You guys, now you have to do a single-player third-person game.” This is what I still don’t understand.

Zach Mumbach
Producer Visceral Games

Visceral was not in the most enviable position – their specialization was completely changed, the development team had to be reorganized, and all this just so that the next EA project entrusted the studio with what it had done with success before. But, according to Mumbach, by that time “everyone who was good at what we did before had left it.”

Who developed this plan? Obviously there was no plan. We were experts at these games two years earlier, and then we overhauled the studio. It was complicated. But we were able to. And then we were told: “Go back to what was.”

Zach Mumbach
Producer Visceral Games

Project Ragtag also worked on Amy Hennig, who had just left Naughty Dog at the time. Mumbach still admires the way she led the project – writing the characters and the plot. And even when it was clear that Visceral’s vision was different from what EA wanted, it didn’t leave the project.

But the publisher constantly pressured the developers, demanding to cut out impressive parts of the game in order to release it as soon as possible.

And I think fucking Amy Hennig, we have a chance to make the greatest Star Wars game in history and a Game of the Year contender. This is not some Army of Two.

Zach Mumbach
Producer Visceral Games

According to Mumbach, Project Ragtag really had every chance of becoming an outstanding game. They had a good script and characters – he describes the main character as a cross between Robin Hood and Star-Lord. But the implementation of all the ideas of the studio, of course, took time.

But then, he said, EA decided that “no one else is interested in singles.”

It would be nice if they realized this two years earlier.

Zach Mumbach
Producer Visceral Games

All these two years, Visceral has been actively developing the game, some of its sections were almost completed – in particular, the spectacular chase from AT-ST. In it, the hero on foot escaped from the attack aircraft along the narrow streets, while everything collapsed and broke around – the authors fully used the Frostbite destruction system.

But now the public will never see any of this. Project Ragtag is permanently closed, Visceral is disbanded, and Mumbach has since left EA – which he hardly regrets.