Star Wars Battlefront 3 Was Canceled “2 Yards From The Finish Line,” Dev Says

A developer who worked on Star Wars Battlefront III has claimed the game was “two yards from the finish line” before it was canceled many years ago. Developer Michael Barclay, who now works at Naughty Dog, made these comments in response to a Twitter thread where developers discussed the projects they worked on that amounted to “the one that got away.”

To be clear, Barclay is talking about a Battlefront game in development at Free Radical Design in the mid-2000s, not the newer series from DICE. That’s an important point because EA is said to have rejected DICE’s pitch for a third Star Wars Battlefront game.

Barclay said the cancellation of Free Radical’s Battlefront III was an “absolute crime.” Barclay added, “Gamers don’t know what they were robbed of.” Barclay’s LinkedIn page said they worked on Battlefront III from 2007-2009 at Free Radical, contributing to the game’s single-player and multiplayer elements.

Despite numerous and detailed attestments to its existence and development, LucasArts never confirmed Battlefront III was in fact in production. Free Radical Design cofounder Steve Ellis said in 2012 that Battlefront III was 99% complete at the time of its cancellation. However, a former LucasArts developer disputed this, saying, “A generous estimate would be 75 percent of a mediocre game.”

EA’s new Battlefront reboot series sold more than 30 million copies, but the publisher did not move forward with a third game. EA is staying in business with Star Wars, though, with its newest game, Jedi Survivor, launching on April 28 from developer Respawn.

Beyond EA’s Star Wars games, there are plenty more Star Wars games in the works as part of Lucasfilm’s reported plans to release two new Star Wars games each year. For more, check out GameSpot’s breakdown below that runs through all the upcoming Star Wars games in the works.