LucasArts on why Star Wars: Battlefront III failed

GS:Source says Steve Ellis' claim that project was sabotaged for financial reasons is "ludicrous," likens Free Radical to Ponzi scheme.

[greatcrusader44]

An interesting revelation it it turns out to be true.

[Philaroni]

I'm sure it is true. There is much more supporting evidence this time around. Its a good lesson to gamers I think on how important deadlines are in the game industry, they where lucky to get some grace payments but outside of that BF3 failed due to them just not being all that good of studio and developers.

[aliengmr]

I'm pretty sure the truth is somewhere in the middle of both accounts. LA isn't know for its unwavering support. SWG and TOR for example.

That said, the 99% claim was over estimated but I think LA lost confidence in the project and wanted it to die. I doubt they intentionally sabotaged it.

If LA was seriously committed to the franchise, where is it? Free Radical may have been a crappy developer but it doesn't change the fact that 1313 was announced (well before it could even be considered a "game") and there is nothing about BF3.

[guitarded77]

I'm one of those who followed and searched out any and all info on this game. This interview is highly likely 99.9% to be legit. It saddens me, but I'm glad someone from LA has finally given their side of the story. I knew 90% finished with the game was a bunch of BS from what we saw of actual leaked gameplay. Damn shame Free Radical couldn't develop for the XBOX... with most devs of that time, it was the other way around. I still want a SWBF game really, REALLY bad. I wish LA would have taken the assets and continued building, but Free Radical owned the engine, so it was a legal nightmare. The source is correct, the fans are the ones who got shafted here.

[antz1104]

Some seriously shady business on Free Radicals part. I sincerely hope some dev with half a brain picks this series up and gets it rolling for next gen.

[Sp1d3ynut]

This isn't surprising to me at all. Free Radical had really only made 2 complete, quality games since they opened their doors: TimeSplitters 2, and Second Sight...both last gen. TS1 wasn't even a full game...zero story, and random action. TS:FP was awful, and HAZE...well, it was the beginning of their end. They had NO SHOT at doing SWBF3 justice. Hopefully Crytek can put what's left of the team to good use, but Free Radical is just another Rare.

[Jek_Porkins]

Oddly enough Free Radical was founded by ex-Rare members. Rare has had mass defections throughout their history, of course most people choose to believe they went downhill when Microsoft purchased them, actually they had defections in the 80's and 90's as well as the early 2000's due to harsh working conditions and extensive hours.

Most people think Rare was all great games, they made shovel ware in the 80's for the NES, a lot of licensed games like Nightmare On Elm Street and Sesame Street. So when people say things like "Old Rare", I always ask them what they mean? Because they have had the largest turnover rate of any developer in the history of games, and it started a long, long time ago.

Another fun fact from Rare is that the newly created side project team that never made a single game developed GoldenEye for the N64, so it wasn't even the core group that did games like Donkey Kong or Banjo.

[Jek_Porkins]

This is a pretty detailed explanation and it seems very plausible. It's hard to believe that Haze possibly played a role in the demise of the Battlefront series, I mean I realize the game was god awful, but who knew it could destroy something controlled by The Force?

I had to call a little BS when I heard Free Radical saying the game was so close to being completed, from the leaked footage it looked like they were maybe 60% done or so. A game that was above 90% finished would have came out.

[tigertron]

Someone needs to hurry up and make this...

[WeskerChildReborned]

I just hope that someday, we'll get a Battlefront 3, those games were too fun to just die last gen.

[Wenis]

I'm pretty sure it still would be. Please don't tell me that this LucasArts no longer believes that to be the case meaning we'll NEVER see a SWBF3. But for some reason I wouldn't be surprised especially since Disney wants to focus on casual cell phone games.

[cl1983]

It's up to disney now.

[Lex Luthor]

So because of sh**ty Haze we didn't get BF3? :(

[Sarobi]

I know there is some people over at Facebook trying to push a movement to get Timesplitters back (whether its a new game or just a remastered version).. developers have been keeping an eye on the movement as well.. maybe we should start one for Battlefront III

[NewVegasTroop]

this is sad news...

[TekoIie]

The confidence aspect of this seems believable.

In fact I find it the overall more believable perspective of this story. If Free radical were actually producing a good game I doubt Lucas Arts would have cancelled it. Bear in mind too this was the money maker for the star wars franchise on the gaming front and they dont want it getting negative reception.

[Razgriz383]

Battlefront 3 could be huge yet they just don't see it. It could have the size of MAG/Planetside while retaining customization like CoD and the vehicle style roughly (ROUGHLY) like BF3. While having all the good ol Battlefront feel.

[SITH]

It reads like, no matter what was going on, someone did not have their shit together.

[mananimal]

""If the problem really was that we had failed to meet their desperate need for a new Battlefront game, you might ask why after all this time they still haven't released a new Battlefront game using a different developer. I can only speculate."

Exactly!! & Bingo!... Why didnt the game get produced by another developer?, One can only speculate. I maintain & believe this Gen has been about shutting down HC gaming, games that you could Ultimately play OFFlINE, as well as online, the Battlefront series has been just this.
The INDUSTRY has systematically destroyed games of this type.

Remaining "Anonymous" only means youve got something to hide imo, like a lack of creditability.

[chasegarcia]

I think we can all agree that Free Radical had too many projects.

-Did anybody notice how the character movement of Battlefront was just like Socom? I want somebody to ask them about this.