Summary
A developer who worked on the originalStar Wars: Battlefront 2has confirmed why a long-awaited third game in the series has never come to fruition. Although Pandemic Studios developed the originalStar Wars: Battlefront 2, it took a revival from EA and DICE a decade later for fans to get any new content in the popular series.
Ever since its debut in 2004, theStar Wars: Battlefrontseries has been a huge hit for the franchise. However, across both its original run and later revival,Star Wars: Battlefronthas never made it to a third iteration, disappointing fans. The games remain extremely popular despite their age, with DICE’sStar Wars Battlefront 2player count way upof late, thanks partly to the enormous popularity of theAndorTV series. Fans are enjoying spending time with the games all over again, as there’s no better way to experience all the most iconicStar Warsbattles first-hand.
Speaking toVideoGamer,Star Wars: Battlefront 2designer Dan Nanni explained why Pandemic’s version of the third title in the series was never released. It’s well known thatFree Radical got close to the finish line with its own version ofStar Wars: Battlefront 3a few years later, but most will not know that original developer Pandemic had its own version in the works first. According to Nanni, “We started working on it and then negotiations just didn’t take off.” A one-year development cycle was requested, the same as the gap between the originalStar Wars: Battlefrontand its 2005 sequel.
“Negotiations Just Didn’t Take Off” For Pandemic’s Star Wars: Battlefront
This coincided with the release of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, which made the one-year gap almost impossible. “When you’re moving to a new console it’s not as easy as saying, ‘let me just make a game for it like we did for the old console’. New consoles have new hardware and new hardware comes with new limitations and you don’t know exactly what you’re working with until you’ve got it… And so, I think, negotiations stalled out because I think we wanted more time to work on it.” Nanni described Pandemic’spotentialStar Wars: Battlefront 3as “cool,” claiming the space-to-ground concept featured in Free Radical’s canceled version was also present there, too. If “given the time, we’d have made something really special.”
…we’d have made something really special.
While it’s a shame fans never got to experience that version ofStar Wars: Battlefront 3, momentum is gathering for DICE’s series to finally become a trilogy, eight years after the last game was released. By rallying players to hop into action,Star Wars Battlefrontfans are trying to send a big message to EAthat the demand is still there for a new game. Whether it comes together is another thing entirely, but there’s no doubt that a newStar Wars Battlefrontgame would immediately find an audience.
