While they had some gameplay and ideas set for this game, the title changed upon the release of Capcom's Resident Evil 4 in 2005, which received high critical praise and commercial success.

According to Wanat and Bagwell, not only did Resident Evil 4 alter their ideas for the System Shock game, but it also helped Schofield to convince EA's management to let them pursue a new title.

[10] Wanat described that there was pressure to make the game play faster and appeal to a broader audience, an approach that was at odds with the roots of the series in the horror genre.

[4] EA's VP Patrick Söderlund said in a July 2013 interview, following Dead Space 3's that while they still valued the franchise, Visceral was not working on a fourth title, and instead had been assigned to two new projects.

The studio opted to pitch a third-person action game that maintained the spirit of Jamaica, having players play as "space scoundrels" in an open-world-style Star Wars universe, and code-named this project as Yuma.

[13] Amy Hennig, the writer for the first three Uncharted games from Naughty Dog, was brought into EA for Visceral as creative lead and to help write the story for Yuma.

[3][15][16][17] In light of these concerns, EA's CEO Andrew Wilson stated that the reason for Visceral's closure wasn't a single-player versus multiplayer game issue, but instead one based on listening to player feedback and following marketplace trends.