Today is May the Fourth, or Star Wars day. We already got an appetizer with a new LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, but Electronics Arts decided to steal the show by virtue of announcing a brand new Star Wars third person action/adventure game in development at Respawn Entertainment.

　　Patrick Söderlund, Executive Vice President of EA Studios, said:

　　Today, I’m thrilled to be able to announce that EA and the talented team at Respawn Entertainment have expanded our relationship to include the development of an all-new 3rd person action adventure game set in the Star Wars universe. They join our other great studios – Visceral Games, DICE, Capital Games, BioWare, Motive and more – who are currently working on Star Wars projects. If you’re interested in joining us on this adventure, you can visit our Careers page – we have openings at Visceral and Motive and will be sharing more on these experiences soon.

　　This is not the team currently making Titanfall 2, mind you. Rather, it's another team led by Stig Asmussen, former director of God of War 3, and they will be using Unreal Engine 4. Asmussen talked about this opportunity in a blog post:

　　I am happy to announce our partnership with Electronic Arts and Lucasfilm to deliver a whole new adventure to the galaxy.­­

　　For me, just typing these words is surreal. I have been playing Star Wars games my whole life, now I get to make a Star Wars game. On top of that, I get to do it at Respawn, a studio comprised of the most talented collection of game makers, creators, visionaries, and (most importantly) advocates for the player, that I have had the good fortune to work with. And we, like you all, have no shortage of Star Wars passion.

　　The entire company erupted in cheers when it was announced that this would be our next endeavor.

　　But it’s not all fun and games — we promise to pay respect to the Star Wars legacy at all times, a fact that will be constantly reinforced and honored as a central game design tenet. Fans should expect the exemplary level of quality first established at Respawn with Titanfall, a game that epitomizes our studio’s dedication to slick, larger-than-life action and fun, groundbreaking mechanics. Moving forward, we couldn’t ask for a better universe in which to continue this journey, and although I would love to share all of the exciting places we are going, we have the following piece of information to divulge with you all today:

　　We’ll be making a third-person action/adventure game set in the Star Wars universe.

　　Now, I understand on the surface this might sound a bit dry, but developing a game within the ever-expanding Star Wars universe opens up so many paths for us to go down, and an unparalleled playground to design within. We have already planted the seeds by assembling a small, but incredibly talented team, ready for the amazing journey that lies ahead. With this in mind we are looking to expand the dream.

　　What's interesting is that Visceral Games already have a Star Wars action/adventure project led by Amy Hennig, developed in collaboration with Jade Raymond's Motive Studios. At this point, it's likely that Asmussen's project will be open world while Hennig's was confirmed not to be.

　　Clearly, Electronic Arts want to fully exploit the lucrative Star Wars license now that the movies reignited the passion surrounding the popular universe created by George Lucas.