Star Wars First Assault Paves the Way for Battlefront III

[Cognimancer]

Star Wars First Assault Paves the Way for Battlefront III

Star Wars Battlefront III could be closer than you think, as long as Disney gives it the green light.

Star Wars First Assault is a very poorly kept secret. While the game hasn't been officially announced yet, we've known about it for a while now a slip-up on XBLA [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119357-Lucasfilm-Files-Star-Wars-First-Assault-Trademark]. With LucasArts currently being acquired by Disney, First Assault (along with Star Wars 1313) is frozen in carbonite until Disney figures out a plan for the Star Wars property. Unable to make any official announcements, the team at LucasArts has been working on the game in silence for months. First Assault was intended for a September beta followed by a spring release, acting as a predecessor for re-opening development on Star Wars Battlefront III. Now it's nearly finished, but its fate (and by extension, the fate of Battlefront III) is in the hands of Disney.

Kotaku has been releasing a steady stream if insider information from the First Assault team. The game was to be LucasArt's answer to the success of Call of Duty and Battlefield, featuring 16-player matches with tactical combat and an XP progression system of unlocks. Some features would be notably absent - including vehicles and Jedi - but this was deliberate. According to an inside source, the plan was to use First Assault's engine to lay the groundwork for Battlefront III, which would be built from the ground up by the same team (rather than using Free Radical's incomplete engine [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118282-Watch-an-Hour-of-Star-Wars-Battlefront-III-Gameplay]).

It's hard to guess where First Assault is right now, since the team's hands are tied from making any official announcements. Leaked screenshots and videos show footage from an early build of the game, demonstrating a number of weapons and special abilities on recognizable maps like Bespin and Tatooine. There are enough twists to set the game apart from traditional war games, including a holographic decoy and a repulsor that seems to throw nearby players away from the user. There's also a first-person clip of an Imperial Stormtrooper donning his helmet, which would have been part of a trailer if LucasArts had permission to release one.

Disney hasn't announced anything about their intentions for LucasArts' game projects. If First Assault is given the go-ahead, expect to see it as a downloadable title on XBLA. Until then, our Bothan spies will keep their eyes open for more information.

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5990366/leaked-footage-of-star-wars-newest-take-on-battlefield-and-call-of-duty?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow]

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[Ukomba]

*LOVES ON* What Disney does with this game and 1313 will speak a lot to how they plan on using their newly acquired IP and resources. Don't disappointing Disney.

I'd also be interested in what possible 1 player story they might have going... Yes I'm still hoping for a new Dark Forces game too! Don't judge me ;_;.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

DID I DIE AND GO TO HEAVEN?

<youtube=P3ALwKeSEYs

Video is borked. You forgot the closing ">" after the link.

On topic: 0_0 ************... 8D

*To self* Calm yourself down, pony boy. *no longer to self*

Anyways,I'm not buying that anything even resembling Battlefront 3 possibly existing until I see it for myself. My Battlefront 3 dreams have taken far too many savage beatings many years ago for me to get hyped. On top of that, what little is said here does make this seem a little too CoD-ish, even if it's supposedly just the groundwork for BF3. Still, I do like the initial concept of FA and would probably punch the moon itself in excitement at the thought of a proper BF3. However, I absolutely refuse to get my hopes up until I can actually play it for myself and confirm that it's not pulling a Gearbox here.

Captcha: "slow down!" FUCK YOU, CAPTCHA! *runs off in tears*

 

[Fappy]

After hearing about the true fate of the original Battlefront 3 it is really hard for me to be excited about this. LucasArts is a bunch of jerks

 

[ShadowTrooper-A-E]

Disney you will give the go ahead for this game and give full support and assistance to the devs.

 

[GaltarDude1138]

Well, it depends on if they intend to add these iterations (these experience points, repulsors, holo decoys) to Battlefront 3. BF3 was never about arena fighting, so I hope to god they're just putting this out there to show the rest of LucasArts and Disney that there is demand for a Star Wars shooter.

But still, hope they make BF3 a proper sequel and they make the mechanics different from Call of Duty/Halo/Battlefield 3 so that it's not a clone of any one of those games.

Besides all that, I'm happy as shit! And I'll probably buy this just so BF3 can finally come out of development hell.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

After hearing about the true fate of the original Battlefront 3 it is really hard for me to be excited about this. LucasArts is a bunch of jerks

Thing is, Lucasarts is a different company now, or at least the management they answer to is. The death of Battlefront 3 was at the request of some jerk of an executive. I don't see Disney being too kind to an executive who just throws money away like that.

Also, please don't let it just be XBLA. Throw it up on Steam if you need the DRM, but give us some sort of PC release. I have absolutely no intentions of going with a console next gen, and I'd hate to miss out on a new Star Wars fps when literally every one of them up to now has had a PC release, even if it was just a port of a console game. BF2 /still/ has active servers on the PC, I've put more hours into it in the last couple years than any other online shooter aside from TF2. And I'm not just some nostalgic weirdo, because I bought and played it for the first time in the Christmas 2011 Steam sale.

 

[Fappy]

After hearing about the true fate of the original Battlefront 3 it is really hard for me to be excited about this. LucasArts is a bunch of jerks

Thing is, Lucasarts is a different company now, or at least the management they answer to is. The death of Battlefront 3 was at the request of some jerk of an executive. I don't see Disney being too kind to an executive who just throws money away like that.

Also, please don't let it just be XBLA. Throw it up on Steam if you need the DRM, but give us some sort of PC release. I have absolutely no intentions of going with a console next gen, and I'd hate to miss out on a new Star Wars fps when literally every one of them up to now has had a PC release, even if it was just a port of a console game. BF2 /still/ has active servers on the PC, I've put more hours into it in the last couple years than any other online shooter aside from TF2. And I'm not just some nostalgic weirdo, because I bought and played it for the first time in the Christmas 2011 Steam sale.

I can only assume Disney has or plans to gut LucasArt's old-guard executives. That publisher's been on the top of my shit list for eons >.<

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Well, it depends on if they intend to add these iterations (these experience points, repulsors, holo decoys) to Battlefront 3. BF3 was never about arena fighting, so I hope to god they're just putting this out there to show the rest of LucasArts and Disney that there is demand for a Star Wars shooter.

But still, hope they make BF3 a proper sequel and they make the mechanics different from Call of Duty/Halo/Battlefield 3 so that it's not a clone of any one of those games.

But besides all that, I'm happy as shit!

Unless Battlefield 3 was a much stronger step down for the series than I thought it was (it lost some cool features from BF2, you can't deny that), I'm honestly not sure why cloning it would be an issue. The Battlefront series started out as a clone of Battlefield 1942 with a Star Wars skin. Battlefront 2 still had more in common with 1942 than it did Battlefield 2, and with the commander system removed and the squad system cut down, BF3 is likewise more like BF1942 (and by extension, the Battlefront games) than it is Battlefield 2.

Please note that I'm only talking gameplay here, not any weird things like that social network that comes attached to BF3.

TL;DR: Battlefront has always been a Battlefield clone. Really anything with conquest mode as a major feature is likely to be one.

[sub][sub][sub][sub]The intentionally similar names are really annoying here. Shared acronyms FTL, and I'm not talking about the roguelike.[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[MrMan999]

I'm just kind of worried about Disney's rumored focus on IOS and Social Gaming when it comes to Lucasarts.

 

[weirdee]

gonna miss the vehicles though, watching people try to drive them was half the fun of the game

the other half was trying not to die by getting crushed

 

[Ham Blitz]

This is at least hope inspiring news. Also, I would be kind of happy in they made Battlefront III without the heroes. I always found them kind of cheep and I always liked it better when it was just soldiers fighting each other the field. I do question why no vehicles though because those were always pretty fun.

 

[Froggy Slayer]

This and the HD Timesplitters remake all in one day? Oh my lord, tis a Thursday miracle!

 

[SpAc3man]

I would love to play this. I used to spend hours with BFro2 on PS2. Anything that leads to BFro3 is a good thing.

 

[MiskWisk]

First thought: yes, yes, YES!

Thought after reading it: Oh dear. I hate to be a pessimist (okay, that's a lie) but the fact that they could potentially scrap the ground and space battles link thing by building a new engine rather than use the damn near complete one worries me.

 

[Bat Vader]

Only on the XBLA? Why no PC love? Hopefully Disney does green-light Battlefront 3. I would especially love to see a what-if type of campaign in the game. I am going to get pretty angry at Disney if they cancel Star Wars 1313. From the short game play video I saw it looks pretty fun.

 

[nuba km]

first time splitters rewind and now this, its a good week for gaming.

 

[spartandude]

could this be... A New Hope? i come on somebody had to make some kind of reference

but even if we dont like what we see now we can at least know that Diseney is listening to its fans alot more than Lucas Arts was. next step is to declare The Old Republic non cannon and get Obsidian working on KotOR III. also make the theatrical release of the original films readily avliable on blue ray and DVD