Titanfall Dev Recalls Pitching Its Star Wars Game to EA

We still don't know much about Titanfall developer Respawn's new third-person Star Wars game, but now the founder of the developer has revealed it almost didn't happen.

In an interview with IGN, Vince Zampella talked about the origins of the project. He said he visited J.J. Abrams' production company, Bad Robot, when it was working on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Some people there were big fans of Zampella's past work, including the Call of Duty franchise and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. They told him, "You guys need to do a Star Wars game."

Zampella is a big fan of the Star Wars franchise, saying it's part of his DNA. After he hired God of War III director Stig Asmussen from Sony, they talked about possibly making a Star Wars game. Respawn pitched it to EA, but the publisher's initial response wasn't exactly what the developer had hoped for.

"He and I talked about, 'Wouldn't it be amazing if we could do this Star Wars game?' We talked to EA about it. Initially, it didn't look like it was going to happen," Zampella said. "So we moved on and started creating an original IP with that team. EA came back--not that long ago; a year ago or something--and said, 'Wait a minute, maybe we do want you to do a Star Wars game.' We were able to work it out. We couldn't be more excited; it's a great team."

Whether or not that new IP is still in development remains to be seen.

Respawn now has multiple in-house development teams, one working on Titanfall 2 and the other on Star Wars game. A Titanfall mobile game, Frontline, is also in the works.

Zampella says Respawn having more than one team inside the studio is a good thing. It affords developers the opportunity to shift to a new project to flex their creative muscles.

"Having multiple teams is really important for us as a studio as we grow and try to embrace more gaming," he said.

Respawn's Star Wars game has not been officially announced. All we know is that it's an "all-new third-person action adventure game set in the Star Wars universe." The studio, founded by Call of Duty veterans Zampella and Jason West, is the first external developer that EA is working with on new Star Wars games. EA-owned studios Capital Games, Visceral Games, DICE, BioWare, and Motive are also currently working on Star Wars projects.

Check out this roundup to see a breakdown of all the EA Star Wars games in development that have been announced.

Titanfall 2 comes out on October 28 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.