SPOnG

16 Jan 2009















Speaking to SPOnG, an ex-employee of Free Radical has confirmed that the leaked Star Wars: Battlefront III footage is genuine, but that crucial technology developed for the game is unlikely to make it into the final code.

The former employee, who wishes to be known only as Thomas Dudenaughty, told SPOnG, "It's genuine. However, it's my understanding that the game's been passed to a new developer, but the tech that allowed you to fly from the ground, to air, to orbit, to space dies with Free Radical's involvement. The new developer will be making it a cutscene every time you want to transition from ground to space."

We were told that the game mechanic would have offered "complete freedom".

The new developer is thought to be Rebellion, which has worked on Battlefront: Renegade Squadron for the PSP.

We were also told that Brian Crecente over at Kotaku, who picked up on a hooded character looking very Sith-like saying, "Stick to the plan Kenobi" was "on the money". It looks like another attempt to turn a Jedi to the Dark Side was to feature in the game. Whether this will make it into the final game is unclear.

You can see the video in full here.

The Battlefront games have never been anything technically stellar, and for that matter, Free Radical hasn't been all that in quite some time either, but the bottom line is that they were just plain fun. It was Star-Wars, it was violent, it was well rounded, and it didn't require a whole lot of thought.

This has to be the one disappointment coming out of Free Radical's dissolution. If anything, at least this game had merit.