Star Wars Jedi series Director Stig Asmussen leaves EA in shock decision

Famed video game Director and Respawn Entertainment heavyweight Stig Asmussen has left the developer and EA. The news comes just months after Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s release.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor released earlier this year to talks of GOTY contendership. Despite some heavily publicized performance issues on PC to begin with, Jedi: Survivor was a massive success for Respawn Entertainment nonetheless.

It outsold its predecessor Jedi: Fallen Order and both games singlehandedly broke the streak of lackluster Star Wars releases from EA. The game even received a recent update bringing DLSS to PC and a stable 60 FPS to consoles.

With all of this, Director of the Star Wars Jedi franchise Stig Asmussen’s departure from EA and Respawn Entertainment comes as a shock to the industry. The news was announced on September 14 by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier.

NEWS: Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor director Stig Asmussen is leaving EA, Bloomberg has learned. Asmussen and his team at Respawn helped revitalize Star Wars video games after a rocky decade for the franchise under EA https://t.co/IBQbRDdsSv

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) September 13, 2023

Why did Stig Asmussen leave EA?

Asmussen has helmed some major titles in his tenure including God of War 3 and more recently, the Star Wars Jedi franchise. He won a BAFTA for his work on God of War 3 for Best Artistic Achievement.

This was a big part of Respawn Entertainment’s decision to hire him for Jedi: Fallen Order which rocketed the developer to one of EA’s top studios. In a statement to Bloomberg, an EA spokesperson gave some insight on Asmussen’s departure.

“After careful thought and consideration, Stig Asmussen has decided to leave Respawn to pursue other adventures, and we wish him the best of luck,” they announced. In the lead-up to Jedi: Survivor’s release, Asmussen expressed great passion for and commitment to the series.

In our own interview with him, he revealed his aspirations to work on a sequel and final chapter to Cal Kestis’ story. “I think of things in trilogies and a lot of that is because of Star Wars. It’s kind of just my approach,” Asmussen told Dexerto.

While a more concrete reason for Asmussen’s withdrawal from Respawn and EA is currently obscured, the press release makes it sound amicable. For now, however, the future of the series remains murky, and it’s unclear just how far along the third entry is at the time of Stig’s departure.

Whatever the case, Stig Asmussen surely has a lot of development left in him and the studio lucky enough to snap him up surely has some hits in store. We look forward to seeing what he does next.