Battlefront III Died Just Inches From the Finish Line

MikeWehner

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Aug 21, 2011
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Battlefront III Died Just Inches From the Finish Line



The third Battlefront title was nearly complete when it fell on its own lightsaber.

Star Wars: Battlefront III will never see the light of day, and that fact alone is enough to make many gamers a bit sick to their stomach. But a recent interview by gamesTM with Steve Ellis, co-founder of the game's developer Free Radical Design, gives the story of Battlefront III an even more tragic twist. Along with revealing a few tantalizing gameplay tidbits about the canned title, Ellis notes that the game was "99% finished" when it met its untimely end.

"We had a 99% finished game that just needed bug fixing for release," Ellis explains. "It should have been our most successful game, but it was cancelled for financial reasons."

Earlier this year a lengthy gameplay video was leaked, showing roughly an hour of the game. At the time, it was clear that the project was rather far along in its development, but the revelation that the game made it to the final bug-crushing phase before being cancelled is downright brutal. That video has since been pulled from nearly all corners of the web due to a copyright claim by Lucasfilm.

Offering a bit of background into the nuances of the game's cancellation, Free Radical Design's Project Manger, Martin Wakeley notes "As a member of staff I could see our relationship with LucasArts becoming more distant and feared the worse. They had a change of management and a change of direction. I wasn't party to all the ins and outs but we had both our games signed with them, and it became apparent we needed to look for other projects fast."

But hey, at least we got Star Wars Kinect, right? Right!?

Source: NowGamer [http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1701703/free_radical_battlefront_3_was_99_percent_finished.html]

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Fappy

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Jan 4, 2010
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You should link back to that old article you guys ran about what happened between LucasArts and the devs. It was some really messy stuff. LucasArts is a bunch of heartless bastards.
 

Absolutionis

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Sep 18, 2008
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Lucasarts has new management yet again, and this time Disney is actually competent.
Perhaps we'll see Battlefront 3 v2 and Jedi Knight 3 and KotOR 3 (not infected by EA).
 

CardinalPiggles

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Jun 24, 2010
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That is crushing. I was never a massive fan of Battlefront seeing as I couldn't play online at the time. But knowing a game was 99% finished before being axed is a massive shame. All that work and money for nothing.
 

Zhukov

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Dec 29, 2009
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So... what actually happened to get it cancelled?

It's one thing to bin a prospective project, but you would think that the publisher, having already spent the money to get the thing made, would want to get it on shelves rather than mothball it.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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And in doing so Lucasarts inadvertently killed Timesplitters 4.

Fuck you, Lucasarts. Fuck you until the end of fucking time.
 

BernardoOne

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Jun 7, 2012
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Arrrrrrrrrrghhhhh


My hate for LucasArts just got bigger. This is a game I would preorder the limited edition as soon as it would be possible.
 

mad825

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Mar 28, 2010
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You invest time, planning and resources into a game that's practically on the verge of release then you can it and get absolutely nothing out of it. Wtf?

Even though the developer went bust, it would've been far more worth it to go that extra mile and outsource it for that final stage.
 

SonicWaffle

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Oct 14, 2009
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I loved Battlefront, but wasn't such a fan of II. Would have been nice to give this a try though.
 

fix-the-spade

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Zhukov said:
So... what actually happened to get it cancelled?
The short version is that going gold, production, release and marketing would have required a significant amount of money from LucasArts, money that they had yet to invest.

LucasArts evidently decided they wanted to keep the money more than they wanted to release Battlefront 3 (not entirely a stupid decision, number 2 hadn't been a particular success). To achieve that they abused the clauses in their contract with Free Radical regarding development milestones.
Milestones are a pretty nebulous concept, LucasArts simply defined them as having not been met, giving them an opportunity to cut their contract with Free Radical and also withhold money owed. Which they did, regardless of what Free Radical had actually delivered. As various things have shown Free Radical had delivered a more or less finished game, but sadly that game was no longer part of 'the plan' for new LucasArts, so they buried it.

In theory Free Radical could have sued, but that was well beyond their means and still would have resulted in no Battlefront. This turn of events is far, far more common than it should be.

I suspect this continues to be a source of embarrassment for the current LucArts bigwigs, given their usually violent reaction whenever anything to do Battlefront 3 surfaces.

Captcha: fair and square, oh my.
 

Absolutionis

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VeryOddGamer said:
Absolutionis said:
Jedi Knight 3
Wasn't there a Jedi Knight 3? Jedi Academy?
Or is this just another thing that's existence fans refuse to acknowledge?
Academy was fine and great, but it was more of the same of Jedi Outcast except with a great proto-Battlefront multiplayer mode. It's always been treated as pretty much a standalone 'expansion' equivalent similar to how Assassin's Creed Chronicles/Brotherhood/Revelations is to the main series.

Either way, another Jedi Knight game would be greatly welcome so long as it isn't Force Unleashed.
 

Berithil

Maintenence Man of the Universe
Mar 19, 2009
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This gives me a sad D:

I was looking forward to this for such a long time, and to hear it got cancelled shortly before launch is depressing.

Well, when in doubt, Blame Lucasarts... I guess
 

Flamezdudes

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Aug 27, 2009
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This makes the whole thing sting a little bit more, for the simple fact that it was very much almost done...

Man, I loved BFII... this would have been amazing.
 

Jorec

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Jul 7, 2010
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Well I guess all we can do is pray to Mickey, the Patron Saint of Disney, and hope he takes pity on us and makes Battlefront 3 a reality.