One of the producers involved with EA and Visceral Games’ canceled Project Ragtag Star Wars game, Zach Mumbach, has said that it would have been “the best Star Wars game ever made.” He opened up about his experiences developing the now-shuttered Dead Space developer’s project with MinnMax. In the interview, Mumbach touched on everything from the single-player game’s length, to set pieces, to what it was like to see the game eventually canceled.
When asked what the result would have been if the team had been given two more years to work on Ragtag, Mumbach said, “I think we would have made the best Star Wars game ever made. That’s not knocking any other Star Wars game ever made, by the way. The story, and the setup, and the characters, like, man, it was set up for success. It was just what we had to go execute, and execution was going to take a while.”
On the topic of the shutdown, Mumbach referenced EA’s shift away from single-player experiences at the time, explaining that the publisher was more interested in pushing games that “sell 20 million units and then continue to sell DLC for years later.” However, Visceral had been crafting Project Ragtag to be an “amazingly well-crafted” “12-hour” experience. Mumbach acknowledged that it makes sense to follow current gaming trends, though he does wish EA had decided to finalize that focus on multiplayer before Ragtag had gotten too far into development.
Big set pieces and interesting story beats were the most promising parts of Ragtag for Mumbach: “We had one set piece that was basically done. We were putting the final touches on it right when the studio got shut down — this crazy AT-ST chase moment that was, like, really cool.”
The section in question would have seen players running from and dodging the AT-ST through alleys. The Frostbite engine’s destructible environments would have been on full display, as the segment was essentially Visceral’s take on Uncharted gameplay meets the Star Wars universe. Mumbach also briefly described Ragtag’s protagonist as a cross between Robin Hood and Guardians of the Galaxy’s Star-Lord.
Uncharted lead Amy Hennig was overseeing Ragtag, which makes sense considering its similarities with Naughty Dog’s action-adventure franchise. The producer credited many of the canceled game’s positive qualities to Hennig’s involvement, saying that she was clever, focused, and driven.
Despite a rough start with some of its Star Wars adventures, EA has continued on with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and the upcoming Star Wars: Squadrons.
