EA is rethinking how games treat the Star Wars universe

The recently announced Star Wars: Battlefront will be the first in a series of games that aim to rethink how games treat the Star Wars universe, said EA's games label Patrick Soderlund.

"The most important thing for me is that we take the Star Wars license and come up with games where peoples' jaws drop," he said. "We need to do with this what [Batman: Arkham Asylum] did for the Batman license."

The first announced title under EA's recent agreement with Disney to make Star War games is the new Star Wars: Battlefront game announced during E3.

Soderlund said there wasn't much he could tell me about the game, which is being developed by Mirror's Edge and Battlefield developer DICE.

We're looking at the old games. We have access to everything that was done during the LucasArts era

"It's going to take awhile," he said. "We just announced the license and showed a sneak peek of Hoth. The speeder and the AT-AT will be in [the game] for sure."

DICE is working on the game because after EA landed the deal, developers from the studio came to him to ask to make it, Soderlund said.

"I didn't think they wanted to build it," he said. "I thought they only wanted their own IP. But it's a really good fit."

The team working on the new game will be looking at everything as they work on this new title, he said, including the work put into Star Wars: Battlefront 3 before it was canceled.

"We didn't toss anything out," he said. "We're looking at the old games. We have access to everything that was done during the LucasArts era. But we do want to take our own stance."