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Star Wars: Battlefront III was the expected fourth game in the Star Wars: Battlefront series. It was in development but was stopped for unknown reasons. The game was then officially cancelled. In 2013 at E3 Electronic Arts announced the game Star Wars Battlefront.[1]

LucasArts Leak[]

Following the firing of LucasArts workers, angry ex-employees told of several previously unannounced games including Battlefront III.

Some gameplay footage was leaked onto IGN, later pulled by LucasArts because it was placed there without permission.

Battlefront 3 showed off some amazing graphics and some concept images.

Amazon Listings[]

On July 9, 2008, listings appeared on Amazon stating Star Wars Battlefront III for a March 15, 2009 release. Apparently it will be on PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS and PSP. These listings were promptly removed over night and it should be noted that this could have been a mix-up with the game on those platforms called Star Wars: The Force Unleashed as Amazon have been known to make large mistakes over release dates.

Secret LucasArts Project[]

A secret LucasArts project was in development by Free Radical Design[2], the project is thought to be Battlefront III by many fans and gaming sites. The project is currently titled for "NextGen" consoles[3], this could mean all of the next generation consoles or just a few of them. Screenshots have also been found on the internet, but the game has yet to be officially announced.

On December 28, 2008, renders of Star Wars characters surfaced from a laid off employee of Free Radical, bearing the Star Wars Battlefront III watermark. Further leaked artwork hints that a dark-side rendition of Obi-Wan Kenobi may be featured in the game.[4]

Soon after on January 15, 2009, gameplay footage was leaked from a Free Radical in-house showing from November 2008. It showed seamless ground to space maps, new units, maps, and faster overall gameplay, and was branded with the Free Radical Design logo.[5] The leaked footage and pictures revealed that the engine of Battlefront III is graphically far superior than its predecessors. Furthermore the footage featured cutscenes and appeared to place more emphasis on storyline elements while still retaining the trademark style of gameplay. The footage was later pulled on IGN after Lucas Arts demanded it be removed as it is "the intellectual property of Lucasfilm and [has] been posted without permission".[6] A former employee of Free Radical Design later sat down to an interview with IGN. Regarding the technology to seamlessly travel from air to space the ex-employee stated, "It's dead. The stuff in the video of going from the ground to air to space to orbit is the tech that is dying with us".[7] Free Radical Design announced that they lost the rights to develop Star Wars: Battlefront III in October, prior to them going into administration. The game had been in development for two years.[8]

The current state of the game is unknown, with both Rebellion Developments, developer of Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, and Pandemic Studios[9], developers of the first two installments being rumored to take the project over.

Pandemic studios lost the rights to develop Battlefront III due to their November 17, 2009 closing [10], according to several sources.

2009 Gamestop Listing[]

Battlefront III then appeared on gamestop.ca in December of 2009. It listed the game for PC, PS2, PS3, and Xbox 360. The game was also available for pre-order on January 1, 2010, but was shortly removed after midnight on the 14th of December.[11]

2010 GameSpy Server listing[]

In May 2010, Star Wars: Battlefront III appeared on the server lobbies of GameSpy,

The Server Listing.

thus leading to speculation that the game might be announced at E3 2010. Sadly, though, it wasn't.

Current Status[]

According to Battlefront3.com, the game was to be revealed at Celebration V. This was not true though. A new rumor has surfaced that the new head of Lucasarts, Paul Meegan, has cancelled The Force Unleashed 3 and put an unannounced game on hold. Many believe this game to be Battlefront 3. If this is true, Lucasarts could be waiting for The Force Unleashed 2 to be released before announcing a new game. This would have meant that the announcement could have been the Spike Video Game Awards (Lucasarts previously announced The Force Unleashed 2 there) if the rumour was true. However, once again there was no announcement. Now the rumor is that Crytek UK is developing it.

More recently, many thought that it would finally be announced at E3 2011 after "2 Super Sequels" were revealed to be announced by LucasArts. However, the game was not announced at E3. The "2 Super Sequels" were Far Cry 3 and Final Fantasy XIII-2. Unfortunately, Battlefront 3's current status remains -- in development or cancelled. Many people thought that it would be announced at Gamescon, but it wasn't

As of September 2011, there are now rumors of Spark Unlimted developing the game. They have not been specific as to what games are in development, but they did announce a 1st and 3rd Person action game based on a major Sci-Fi franchise.

"We are in production on an unannounced high-profile, popular game sequel for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC release." announced Spark Unlimited. "We are developing this product utilizing our experiences with the Unreal engine." then adding: "If you want word on Battlefront, you need to contact LucasArts. " This time, the rumors could be true, as hundreds of Pandemic employees are now working for Spark.[12]

April 2012[]

Spark Unlimited officially came out and said they aren't making the game (making Lost Planet 3) however many people still believe it could still be under devopment. Resident Evil- Racoon City has coding on the disc that has images of loading screens of BF3 and other material. Based on the fact that the game is so modern suggests that he game may still be made. People who follow this game closely such as Tuggie and http://www.battlefront3.net/ among others believe that there is a chance of an announcement at E3. It is unknown at present if the images are of Free Radical's game or another one possibly in development.

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