It turns out EA could be working on a new next-gen, open-world Star Wars title. The company posted a job listing on their website for the positions of "Lead Combat Designer" as well as "Animation Director" with the job description: to work on a ‘major new next gen open world action game. All of this was then followed up by a tweet from an EA job recruiter stating:

Best job title EVER! Lead Combat Designer for Star Wars @EA! http://bit.ly/14CEg2Y  #job #starwars #Vancouver #ea #gaming."

I think that's good enough evidence for me. However, a lot of websites are connecting "open world" with Grand Theft Auto and while the base idea is fairly accurate, for this specific type of franchise I feel that's wrong and gives people a negative connotation on what this game could actually be. Sorry folks, I doubt we are going to be hijacking speeders any time soon. However, on the otherside of the coin, there's already The Old Republic, which is THE franchise MMO at the moment and it's a limiting factor on the idea that they could be developing another MMO-ish type of game. Good.... Not again... Ok, again, but please do it better if you will.

With all that said, that means there is this sort of middle-ground where you ask what could it be if it is not an MMO yet EA has a huge chunk of data to work with? I mean, Star Wars outside of the films has a vastly more epic world with so much more depth when compared to other successful franchises that also have open-world games like Mass Effect. I'm not hating or anything, but I am fairly certain there is a lot more going on inside the history of Star Wars than Mass Effect, but I digress.

My prediction is they are going to go off of what the next three movies hold and with Star Wars: Episode VII still on-route for a December of 2015 release window, they have a ton of time. That means they are likely going to use the juicy chunk of untold story that happens after Luke beats Vader and saves the galaxy from the Empire. Star Wars: Knights of the New Republic anyone? Huh? Huh? No? Aw... But I think that's where they might be headed in-terms of this "open-world" genre, especially a "next-gen" one which refrences Xbox One and Playstation 4 (or in short, consoles).

So there's that, I expect to see some sort of RPG-based game with maybe a touch of multiplayer for the sake of this generation's "must-have multiplayer" motif. What are your thoughts? Right now, this is all speculation and it probablly won't see the light of day or the eyes of its fans for a long while especially since EA is still looking for employees.