Jade Raymond did an interview with Game Informer where she talked about Motive's four games. Some of this is older information, but I'm putting it all here for people who might have missed it.
There's more about the games and how Motive works at the various links.
Star Wars:
https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/07/05/studio-head-jade-raymond-sheds-light-on-motives-new-ip
https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/0...ev-team-includes-prototype-sleeping-dogs-vets
https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/07/05/eas-motive-montreal-studio-has-a-second-project-in-the-works
There's more about the games and how Motive works at the various links.
Star Wars:
- Being helmed by Motive Vancouver with assistance from Motive Montreal.
- Motive Vancouver was originally co-developing the game with Visceral back when Visceral was leading it.
- Motive Vancouver has staff comes from two backgrounds. The first background is that there are a bunch of people from Black Box who made games like NFS, Skate, an unnamed open world game that was presumably Gunhead, and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare (as "PopCap Seattle"). The second is that they hired a ton of staff who worked on Prototype/Hulk Ultimate Destruction (Radical Entertainment) and Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games), since both of those studios imploded, but had a bunch of open world staff who needed new jobs.
- Amy Hennig's game had 3 terabytes worth of high end Star Wars art assets that they intend to reuse. They had stated this previously.
- Jade Raymond also notes that they really love the characters Amy Hennig came up with, and intend to keep them in the new game. Amy Hennig was noting that a lot of the work she did on Uncharted 4 pre-reboot was reused, and she was hoping the same would happen here, and it seems that will at least be the case for the cast.
- In case the above didn't make it clear, the game is now open world instead of linear.
- They seem pretty unsure on when this game is actually coming out, so slot it in as a next-gen title for now, and be surprised if it ships earlier.
- This is helmed by Motive Montreal, and was the main reason EA opened the studio in the first place, since they wanted into the action-adventure genre.
- This is also the title Jade Raymond is most directly heading up.
- The goal of the game is to reinvent action adventure games for the future.
- Jade Raymond really wants the team to put in gameplay elements beyond "shoot" and "kill". As one example, she wants the game to have a huge "explore" gameplay component. She goes so far as to say she wants Motive's identity to be about "relentless discovery".
- The game is a sci-fi title.
- In another recent interview, she noted that the game will be a positive statement about humanity, so you shouldn't be imagining a gritty Blade Runner world here.
- Jade Raymond notes the game will be a "dynamic, living, breathing world" that keeps evolving and changing over time through what sounds like a live service element. She contrasts this with how (historically speaking) Assassin's Creed is a game where you go through the story content and then it's immediately on to the next annual title without the last one really evolving. [Nirolak's Note: Ubisoft made it sound like Assassin's Creed might be headed in this direction as well next-gen recently.]
- The game will be very social, and something you can play with your friends. She feels that there are a lot of games out there that are a great social pastime for having a great time with your friends, but very few in the action-adventure genre, and feels there's a big opening there.
- The game is still very early overall, but they're hoping to be able to start talking about it around this time next year (presumably E3 2019).
- This is being made by Motive Vancouver. I think everyone who was part of PopCap Seattle (aka Black Box) is part of Motive Vancouver now.
- This seems to be the next Garden Warfare title (or whatever they decide to call the third Plants vs. Zombies shooter game) as far as I can tell. Judging by job postings, it has a campaign this time.
- There wasn't too much else on this beyond that, but uh, I think we can all imagine what this looks like based on the previous two games.
- This is being made at Motive Montreal.
- It's unclear if this is a new or existing IP.
- The project was pitched by three employees who worked on it in their free time and then it got greenlit by EA. A lot of people have joined on to work on it since.
- This sounds like a somewhat smaller project compared to their New IP.
- Motive is very happy with the project, and it's encouraged them to make sure there are more opportunities for staff at any level to get together and pitch project ideas. You'll note that BioWare has made some similar statements recently with how they would like to make Hellbade sized experimental projects based on ideas various developers are passionate about, so this seems to be spreading across EA.
https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/07/05/studio-head-jade-raymond-sheds-light-on-motives-new-ip
https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/0...ev-team-includes-prototype-sleeping-dogs-vets
https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/07/05/eas-motive-montreal-studio-has-a-second-project-in-the-works
