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.

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

coughTimeSplitters4cough?

Edwin


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

coughTimeSplitters4cough?

Future Perfect was pathetic. No reason to hope that 4 would be any better... especially after Haze.

coughTimeSplitters4cough?

We all wanted TimeSplitters four, but you've gotta face it Edwin, the game showed every sign of a flop:

Extended period of time since last installment.
Mid-development engine-changes.
Lack of any substantial news, or media.
A very flexible deadline.
Heavy genre competition from other publishers.

...I could only have so much hope.

Extended or revised development schedules, competition from other publishers, and a lengthy wait between installments do not necessarily an auto-fail make, either commercially or critically :) But yes, I think Free Radical would have had their work cut out for them.

No, not necessarily, but look at the majority of kleig-lit commercial and critical flops in the last few years, and you'll find that the majority of them share those characteristics.

Just a market observation really, combined with a hunch. There will be bigger better FPS' on the horizon in 2009.