Cancelled Star Wars: Battlefront 3 footage discovered
Trashed work from TimeSplitters developer revealed.
More footage from the canned Star Wars: Battlefront 3 game once in development at TimeSplitters creator Free Radical Design has been uncovered.
The freshly uncovered video clip is taken from an early Xbox 360 build of the game, said Past To Present, earlier even than the previous video evidence of Free Radical's efforts: a shaky YouTube clip posted online three years ago, soon after the project (and then the studio itself) collapsed.
The video reveals early gameplay footage and a glimpse at what the full game would offer via the title's extensive menus. Modes included Story Campaign, Training, Galactic Conquest, Instant Action, Challenges, Freeplay and Jedi Arena.
The game's story was to begin with a prologue set on Tatooine, Luke Skywalker's dusty backgarden, before moving on to Coruscant, Cato Nemoidia, Dantooine, Desolation Station, Yavin IV, Hoth and Endor.
Later levels were set to feature Cloud City, Dathomir (from the Clone Wars cartoon), Mustafar, and Wookie homeworld Kashyyyk. Some maps were designed to allow "at least" 32 players.
Interestingly, the video shows off Free Radical Design's planned planet-to-space technology, which allowed players to seamlessly transition from ground-based fighting to shooting Star Destroyers in orbit. An ex-Free Radical employee stated after the game's cancellation that this tech was "dying with us", explaining that the next version of the game (headed up by UK developer Rebellion) was being rebuilt from the ground up, the ground-to-space transition instead replaced by a cut-scene.
LucasArts reportedly pulled the plug on Free Radical Design's work after two years of development (it's worth noting that the leaked footage is from a build long before that point), a decision which immediately preceded the studio's bankruptcy, closure and subsequent buy-out by Crytek.
After Rebellion's replacement Battlefront 3 project never saw release, development was then shunted to SOCOM developer Slant Six, before reportedly finding another home at Legendary: The Box developer Spark. Evidence of Slant Six's work was this week discovered hiding on Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City's disc.
