Battlefront III Died Just Inches From the Finish Line

[Frostbite3789]

This is sad news and all...but I've never understood the rabid desire for this game. It would have been fun, just like 1 and 2 were...but it seems like with how much I hear about this lack of a sequel, the first two games should've probably sold a little better.

 

[MrGalactus]

Anyone have a link to the video that's mentioned in the article? I haven't heard of it 'til now.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Someone has to have all the data for the game.

There's an internal beta out there somewhere. A playthrough online (I forget where I saw) showed off an hour of footage from the beta. It was incredible - you could seamlessly exit a capital ship and fly down to a planet before getting out and taking part in a ground war.

Really, this is just par for the course for Lucasarts. After I heard them can most of TFU2's dev team, I knew it was the beginning of the end for them. They won't recover until the entire management side is purged.

I've seen that internal beta, but the problem is it was nowhere near '99% finished'. It was missing art and sound assets, the lag was abominable, it was glitchy as fuck - i'd say it was 75% or 80% finished. But not 99.

 

[EHKOS]

I...I just don't know what to say. It would have been KotOR II'd. We would have fixed it. IT WAS DONE. ALL THE MONEY AND TIME YOU THREW AWAY. HOW FUCKING STUPID NOT TO RELEASE IT AFTER ALL THAT.

 

[DragonStorm247]

Why in fuck would you do this? You're sitting on a shippable product, you've already sunk god knows how much money into it, and you just DON'T SELL IT?

 

[likalaruku]

They should have put what they had up on torrents

They were getting canned anyway.

Though Disney, do the right thing, boot this back up!

Not interested in the game, but I agree. Spending all that time slaving over something that will never see the light of day.... Someone needs to be punished, & it's not the developers.

 

[Furioso]

This... this is the sadist thing I have ever seen (video game related). I think I'll mourn by playing Battlefront II again. Good times

 

[el_kabong]

Well, one more of my hopes dies today. Thanks, Escapist.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

God.

Fucking.

DAMMIT!!!!

How? How?! can 'financial reasons' become such an issue that the game gets canned, at the point where all that's needed is a fucking bug test before the game is ready to ship. How can that cost too much... HOW?!

There is no circle of hell that burns hot enough for you LucasArts.

 

[kburns10]

If that 99% ever gets leaked we can get a fan made version! Or at least a version with fan bug fixes. Everything else sounds complete.

 

[Racecarlock]

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.

From the sounds of things about this development cycle, Free Radical started work when Hayden Blackman was still in charge of Lucasarts. I really respect him. He's a great storyteller, and he had a real enthusiasm for the Star Wars Universe.

...Which is why when he stepped down from the company, everything went to shit, with the Rogue Squadron sequel getting canned, Battlefront 3 resulting in Free Radical being ground into dust, and Blackman's own pet project, the Force Unleashed Trilogy, getting cut down to two games, and the second one having half its content removed before shoving it out the door.

And for everyone saying "Now that Disney is in control, maybe we'll see something new!", forget about it.

Disney is just the parent company. The senior staff of Lucasarts has not been fired or moved. They just answer to Disney rather than Lucas. Nothing will change until they get rid of the senior staff.

************ canned a rogue squadron sequel too?! Yeah, because god forbid we have star wars in star wars. We could have gotten back with the old team, blown up star destroyers, shoot down ties, and much more, but no. We could have seamless space to ground battles, but no. What do we get? Star wars kinect and star wars 1313, which is just uncharted with star wars paint.

The old star wars is a zombie. Living on through the original trilogy and the rogue squadron, rebel assault, and x-wing series respectively.

This new star wars is just glowy swordfights and gritty clones.

 

[masticina]

THAT is painful

I mean if a half finished project is closed down its a shame. But a 99% done project.. that hurts

 

[Genocidicles]

Why? Why would you bring back such painful memories?

What's next? Are the folks at Interplay going to come forward and say Van Buren was ready to go gold?

 

[chiefohara]

Not a fan... but im facepalming at the idiocy here...

Ship the bloody product and make some money. Thats the whole point of the exercise last i checked.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Unless there were legal reasons holding it back, why the hell wouldn't you release what is essentially a finished product to recoup some of the development investment?

As for the game potentially not being recognized? Battlefront II was rather beloved.
Plus, I thought the point of franchise exploitation was SELLING THINGS BASED ON THE FRANCHISE'S RELEVANCE.

I'm not clued into the particulars, but this suggests something HORRIFYING was happening at upper management at the time.

Far more likely is that the game wasn't anywhere near 99% complete, and LucasArts shitcanned the game to avoid having to pony up cash for marketing when the team went way over budget.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

This is really sad as I loved the battlefront series. I doubt it'll see the light of day with Disney at the helm. It may be "99% finished" but it'd still need to be marketed and distributed which isn't cheap. Also it's an old PS2 game. It couldn't be released now. It'd be so dated. It would have to be completely reworked from the foundation up. New engine, new art assets, new sound effects, new online elements.

I'm sure Lucasarts would rather release a new game than attempt to revive BF3

Sadly this is something I doubt we'll ever see.

 

[Denamic]

Dammit, I was looking forward to this game so hard.
I hope they decide to finish it and release it anyway at some point.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

You know, I think I would've preferred it if you'd never told us this, Mike.

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

You'd think they would put it on hold until their financial situation stabilized for bug testing and other stuff but...

I think I'll take my pre-order of 1313 and go.

 

[Sir Shockwave]

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.

As an odd twist of fate had it, I had an odd visitor in the local GW a few years back, who claimed to be a former Free Radical employee. Apparently, the whole reason BF III was cancelled was because Free Radical wanted to take their time with it, while LucasArts were basically rushing it along. He even gave detailed story analysis of What Could Have Been.

Of course, even today I'm not sure if the guy was talking out his own arse, though it was the most detailed and convincing account I'd heard so far.