Surprisingly, Disney Is Happy With EA’s ’Star Wars’ Games

This was a slow week in gaming, but here at Replay we've still got some news for you. For one, fans finally know how Disney feels about its relationship with Electronic Arts—and it's not bad! Also, sales numbers are in for the hottest new battle royale title around and there's a Halo theme park in the works. Yes, you read that correctly. Let's check it out.

Disney Is Pretty Happy with EA Making Star Wars Games, Actually

One of the most uneasy partnerships in games is the one between publisher EA and Disney. For several years now, since the shuttering of LucasArts games, EA has had an exclusive deal with Disney to make Star Wars console titles. That's all well and good—except for the fact that none of those games have been unmitigated successes and there haven't exactly been a lot of them, either. As a result, many have speculated that Disney's deal with EA might not be long for this world—but apparently the Mouse House is fine with things as they are.

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In a recent earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger replied to questions about the company's relationship with EA by saying that the deal works well for both parties. "We've had good relationships with some of those we're licensing to, notably EA and the relationship on the Star Wars properties, and we're probably going to stay on that side of the business and put our capital elsewhere," Iger said. "We're good at making movies and television shows and theme parks and cruise ships and the like, we've just never managed to demonstrate much skill on the publishing side of games." Welp, at least Disney is happy. Because, uh, no one else is.

Halo Is Getting a Theme Park. It Is Unfortunately Not Titled Halo 6

In another interesting story from the world of games, the cutthroat warrior's world of Halo is coming to meatspace thanks to a traveling theme park. The tour, called Halo: Outpost Discovery, will be coming to convention centers around the country with a 300,000-square-foot installation, featuring virtual reality experiences, laser tag, escape rooms, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

What does this mean? Well, the bad news is that the next Halo game is still at least a year away. But the good news is that you can go play laser tag with Master Chief. So that's something?

Wow, OK, Apex Legends Is Really Taking Off

Remember earlier this week when we wondered aloud whether Apex Legends could compete in the rather crowded battle royale market? Turns out, it can. In fact, it's doing gangbusters.

Since its release, 10 million unique users have downloaded and started playing the game, according to EA, and at its peak there are about 1 million concurrent users playing. That is, uh, not normal. Lessons here? Well, people are hungry for battle royale games. And it seems like they really dug Titanfall 2: enough to give Respawn Entertainment the benefit of the doubt with a game that is definitely not Titanfall 3. It helps, too, that the game is good.

Recommendation of the Week: Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl for PC

Here's the part where I recommend an obscure, difficult-to-play PC game. I know. I'm sorry. But Stalker is special—a wide-open, tense, atmospheric Russian apocalypse full of surprises and terror. Somewhere between survival game and pure survival horror, it's a remarkable experience. It's not easy, but it's worth learning. And with Metro: Exodus—a game with a similar atmosphere created by a related team of developers—dropping soon, now is a great time to check it out.

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