When it comes to the cancellation of Free Radical's Star Wars: Battlefront 3, there's plenty of rumors and speculation regarding what stage of development it was in when the plug was pulled. We heard from Steve Ellis, developer Free Radical's co-founder, that was 99 percent finished, needing only "bug fixing for release." Shortly afterward, we heard from a former LucasArts employee that it was "75 percent of a mediocre game." I don't know what the truth is, but I do know that a new video supposedly containing footage of Star Wars: Battlefront 3's alpha gameplay has been leaked onlie.
The video comes via YouTuber Chr0m3xMoDz, who writes "this is a very early alpha build of Star Wars Battlefront 3 on Xbox 360. If you aren't a hardcore [Star Wars] fan this video probably isn't for you."
As you'll see, due to the pre-alpha stage of this gameplay, the frame rate is horrible and there are still many noticeable bugs. Keep in mind, this is NOT the same game that DICE is currently working. It also hasn't been confirmed to be legitimate footage either.
Even though this is supposedly pre-alpha footage, it's still unclear exactly when this version was made available in the timeline of development. Is this still early on in the development cycle or closer to the end, when the game was cancelled? If the latter, it would certainly explain why the publisher wasn't willing to invest more in the project. Sure, it looks like it has the potential to be fun, but it's also very raw.
Either way, it doesn't really matter at this point anymore. With Disney having purchased the rights to Star Wars and reaching an agreement with Electronic Arts to develop and publish Star Wars games for the "core gaming audience," it's now time to look forward to DICE's vision of what a new Battlefront should be.
