Earlier this year — around February — it was heavily rumored that Spark Unlimited was working on Star Wars: Battlefront 3. Job postings hinting at "a 3rd Person Action/Adventure sequel in a high-profile science fiction franchise" just screamed Battlefront sequel.
Of course, as we know now, that rumor is not true. The science fiction game the job was alluding to was Lost Planet 3, a sequel to Capcom's 3rd person shooter franchise. While we're equally excited for that, there was still some disappointment among fans hoping for Battlefront 3. At New York Comic Con, Spark Unlimited addressed the whole situation and finally responded to the rumors and their reaction to them.
"We understand there's a real desire to have that," began Spark Unlimited development director Kevin Scharff, who is also serving as lead producer on Lost Planet 3. "We kind of, I guess, enjoyed the moment for a little bit, but felt ultimately that's not our decision to make and that we actively urged people to contact LucasArts to find out what the status of Battlefront 3 was."
"As a developer, we really respect our relationships with our publishers and it's never to our benefit – as much as we'd like to – to engage in the community and talk about things that we have no control over. The last thing we wanted was some very stern letter from George Lucas."
"We've been working on Lost Planet 3 for almost three years now if you count the original concept, so Spark hasn't had time to think about anything else for quite a while," added Capcom producer and Lost planet 3 project lead Andrew Szymanski.
Although I'm sure Spark Unlimited is busy with Lost Planet 3, Szymandki's statement isn't entirely true. Spark is actually in the pre-production stage of another project: Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z, a "bold new take" on the 3rd person action/horror genre.