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"Not" Star Wars Games


JBerel

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I know I've read a few web articles about one or more cancelled Star Wars titles that were changed late in development. One in particular, as I recall, was supposed to be Battlefront III I think, but due to breakdowns with LucasArts, the devs stripped it of the Star Wars themes and were going to release it as an original space game. It had something to do with space battles and land battles. Anybody know what the hell I'm talking about, or know anything about what happened with that or similar?

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On 7/27/2019 at 6:28 PM, JBerel said:

I know I've read a few web articles about one or more cancelled Star Wars titles that were changed late in development. One in particular, as I recall, was supposed to be Battlefront III I think, but due to breakdowns with LucasArts, the devs stripped it of the Star Wars themes and were going to release it as an original space game. It had something to do with space battles and land battles. Anybody know what the hell I'm talking about, or know anything about what happened with that or similar?

What console?

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I think this is what you're talking about. There are a few headlines to the effect of "Battlefront III lives on as a Battlefront II Mod." This would be for PC of course. 

 

https://www.moddb.com/mods/star-wars-battlefront-iii-legacy

 

We'll see if it gets shut down like the KOTOR HD mod called Apeiron, or just quietly keeps going but never releases like XWVM, the thing I really want -- X-wing with modern graphics and controls. 

 

There are tons of cancelled Star Wars games, including a Battlefront-looking assault game for Wii U, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter II for Wii, an online space shooter that made it into public beta that seemed cool to me, and updated remasters of Rogue Squadron. I wish I could remember some of these names better but they're pretty generic. 

 

I guess the model nowadays is to plow everything into a few hits, no more spreading out genres and concepts. They've cancelled and delisted way too many mobile games for my liking. I wish I liked EA Battlefront, Galaxy of Heroes, SWTOR, and the LEGO games a bit more than I do. 

 

I'm glad the old games are readily available. 

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I saw that about the Battlefront III thing, but I distinctly remember a couple years ago, I believe it was the studio behind battlefront 2 were saying they were scraping the starwars themes for Battlefront 3 and going ahead with a more generalized original sci-fi game based on their nearly finished work. The article talked about how the planets, characters and weapons were changed. I never heard more, so I'm assuming they either bailed on it, or were threatened with legal action for some reason.  I was going to make a point to buy it as they were moving ahead despite Lucasarts bailing on them. Can't find anything about it anymore.

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Okay, I found some info on what I was tracking previously. There were a few devs in play for Battlefront 3 as it was cancelled multiple times. The most fully developed one was from free-radical who made N64 Goldeneye and Timesplitters. They had the game 99% done when it was dropped by lucasarts. This played a large part in the company going under and dissolving. More info here, with a editorial vid by one of the staff at Free-Radical.

https://www.polygon.com/gaming/2012/5/4/2999790/free-radical-star-wars-battlefront-3-canceled-by-lucasarts-psychopaths

 

Then later an outfit called Frontwire studios sought to revive the game and build it on unreal engine. They called it Galaxy in Turmoil. I think this is the one I was referencing. I'm assuming that's strictly a community remake, but from some reading there may be some participation from devs who built the actual BF3. Can't be too sure of anything a this point. From the link below, you can see Lucasarts and EA tried to kill it. Then it's not entirely clear what happened. It's a highly convoluted and interesting story to try and make sense of. The mod for Battlefront 2 is all mixed up with this as well, but I assume with different players, previously involved with the creation of BF3 or not.

https://www.geek.com/games/lucasfilm-and-ea-just-killed-the-star-wars-galaxy-in-turmoil-game-1664166/

 

Seems like Frontwire then decided to strip all the Star Wars themes from their game and release as a general sci-fi shooter with an eye toward letting mods put star wars stuff in after release. It's still listed on Steam, so it's unclear what the reality is of a release. This could all be well under way, or another Ataribox level of bullshit. Anyway, it's worth following even though all this is pretty long in the tooth by now. From the demo vid, you can definitely see the Battlefront functionality in the game no matter the themes involved.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/488430/Galaxy_in_Turmoil/

 

It's hard to know what's true with any of this, but a lot of people in and around these various incarnations have strong opinions about it having been a really in depth next chapter of the original Battlefront series that fans were looking for, and it was shut down largely due to the time/quality investment made in it. In short, it was being made with too much care to be profitable for Lucasarts, or for them to feel safe in taking the risk of marketing and releasing it. Typical corporate scumbagery. I dunno.

ss_7c5e854626f6146c8c74619adb5e0309f57a8

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJwctjRZ7I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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