EA’s indie label to publish big games

EA’s ‘Originals’ label will be moving away from the indie games it was established to publish, broadening its scope to include big-budget games.

Electronic Arts (EA) has revealed that its EA Originals label, set up to publish small indie games with the financial backing of the company, will be broadening its scope to include bigger games.

EA Originals was established after the success of Unravel, a puzzle-platformer released in 2016. The publisher then went on to publish other indies like Fe, A Way Out, Sea of Solitude, and Lost in Random.

The EA Originals label was also used for some online games, like Rocket Arena and Knockout City, the latter of which was dropped by EA shortly after launch and ultimately will be shutting down in June.

A Way Out was a smash hit for EA and its developer. Picture: EA

Jeff Gamon, the general manager of the business sector in charge of EA Originals, EA Partners, said that the label is instead moving away from niche games, focusing more on bigger budget releases going forward.

“We’ve discovered a desire for bigger, better, and more innovative titles that complement the EA portfolio,” Gamon told Gamesindustry.biz, “Where we started off with smaller, indie games we are now graduating to independently created games of all shapes and sizes and scope and budget”.

Gamon also said that the company was “moving away from niche, and towards bold and audacious,” such as the upcoming game Wild Hearts, a big budget action game developer by the studio who created the Dynasty Warriors series.

EA Originals will also be publishing a game called Immortals of Aveum, which is another big budget title, this time developed by Ascendant Studios. Ascendant was founded by Bret Robbins, who previously worked on major titles like Call of Duty and Dead Space.

Gamon did say that there would still likely be some smaller titles published under the EA Originals label, with “one or two in the pipeline”, but any game published by the company would need to “move genres on”.

Knockout City was eventually dumped by EA, and quickly became free-to-play before shutting down. Picture: Velan Studios

It comes after EA cancelled two mobile games, Apex Legends Mobile and an upcoming Battlefield mobile game, citing a lack of quality in the games as a reason. The company said it would be focusing on strengthening its console games instead.

EA also reportedly cancelled a new Titanfall game, after the game’s director left the company. The game would reportedly have been a single-player game set in the same universe as Titanfall and Apex Legends.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.