Past and present Avalanche Studios executives say Swedish developer was close to inking deal to make "massive" open-world game that could have saved LucasArts.

Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios was close to signing a deal to make a "massive" open-world Star Wars game, according to comments from past and present studio executives.

"Actually, wanting to work with [Star Wars] goes deep in [Sweden]," former Avalanche Studios development director Oskar Burman said over Twitter (via Joystiq). "Long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, we almost got that deal when I was at Avalanche."

Burman worked at Avalanche Studios from 2005 through 2009.

Responding to his tweet, Avalanche Studios founder and chief creative officer Cristofer Sundberg claimed that if the deal had been made, LucasArts may still be open.

"If they had given us the deal back then, LucasArts would be alive today," Sundberg said. "A massive [Star Wars] open-world game! We would have rocked it."

Disney effectively closed LucasArts last month.

The comments from Burman and Sundberg come after yesterday's news that Electronic Arts and The Walt Disney Group had signed a deal to make EA the exclusive developer of "core" Star Wars games.

Avalanche Studios is currently developing multiple unannounced projects, the first of which may be revealed during the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo next month.

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