EA has canceled an unannounced Assassin's Creed-style IP codenamed Gaia, which it's been working on since 2015, reports Bloomberg.
The project was first teased almost six years ago as Assassin's Creed co-creator Jade Raymond was heading up EA Motive. At the time, EA studios exec Patrick Söderlund spoke with IGN about vague plans the publisher had to make a "gigantic action game [...] like Assassin's Creed or Batman or GTA."
"EA is not known to make gigantic action games like Assassin's Creed or Batman or GTA, or those types of games that are really big," Patrick said. "The strategic direction that we put in motion is to expand our portfolio more into that segment."
Then, in an investor call in 2016, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen reiterated those plans. "We feel like there's a huge opportunity for us to continue to invest in new areas of the business like the action genre where we haven't competed historically. There's a very ripe opportunity for us to invest in and we've been able to bring great talent in to build out that part of the business ... Today we're building an action genre product that's probably in our fiscal 20 or 21," Jorgensen predicted.
EA never formally announced the project, but we would eventually see a few precious moments of gameplay footage during EA Play 2020. What we saw was a third-person platformer with jetpack flying and telekinetic powers, and not much more. EA Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele called the project a "highly ambitious, innovative new game that puts the power and creativity in your hands" and "an experience that would've been impossible without next-gen technology."
This comes amidst other major news at EA, including the cancellation of Anthem Next and a major shift in Dragon Age 4's direction that reportedly removes all planned multiplayer content.
For everything (still) on the horizon, don't miss our round-up of all the exciting new games 2021 and beyond.
