I think Star Wars Battlefront 3 might be cursed. For the past 20 years, several different game studios have attempted to create a third entry in Star Wars’ premier shooter sub-series, yet have failed over and over again. We learned last week that EA is reportedly developing Battlefront 3, but also that the project came at the cost of shutting down BioWare.
Battlefront 3 has always seemed like a no-brainer to make; 2005’s Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is widely beloved, and more personally, my favorite game of all time. Yet, the video game industry has never been able to actually launch a third installment in the popular series despite multiple attempts.
After Pandemic Studios released Battlefront 2 in 2005, it would’ve made sense for the studio to roll right into making a third game, but that didn’t happen. In a 2025 interview with VideoGamer, game designer Dan Nanni revealed that Pandemic started work on a follow-up, but negotiations fell through as the console generation shifted and Pandemic couldn’t meet LucasArts' one-year deadline, reflecting the additional challenges of developing a big-budget licensed game. This wouldn’t be the last time a set-in-stone deadline would get a Battlefront game canceled.
In lieu of making a new game with Pandemic Studios, LucasArts pursued a partnership with TimeSplitters developer Free Radical Design. This relationship led to what has become the best-known (and most infamous) prototype of Star Wars Battlefront 3. Leaked footage shows how this take on Battlefront 3 would’ve been a very ambitious, large-scale shooter, wherein players could fight on a planet’s surface, then get in a ship, take off, and fight in space.
Plenty of footage from this take on Battlefront 3 has leaked over the years, so we have a somewhat good idea of what could’ve been. Some developers have even claimed the game was between 75% and 95% finished and that LucasArts was at one point interested in greenlighting a sequel, but Free Radical’s Battlefront 3 was never released.
According to reporting from GameSpot, as well as GamesIndustry.biz and Eurogamer, corporate politics kept this version of Battlefront 3 from ever being able to cross the finish line. LucasArts president Jim Ward, who had established and maintained the relationship with Free Radical, left the company. Subsequently, when Free Radical started to miss deadlines and milestones, it no longer had a LucasArts executive in its corner to keep the relationship healthy.
Rather than work things out with Free Radical, LucasArts’ new management ultimately chose to cancel Free Radical’s Battlefront 3 when it became clear it likely wouldn’t have hit a Fall 2008 release window. A combination of missed deadlines and corporate politics did this version of Battlefront 3 in. Some assets from the canceled game made their way into Rebellion Developments’ Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron for the PlayStation Portable, but the original Battlefront series would conclude after that.
Several years later, EA and DICE would reboot Battlefront, essentially creating Star Wars shooters built on the foundation of their Battlefield games. 2015’s Star Wars Battlefront and its 2017 sequel garnered their fair share of controversy due to a lack of single-player content and the inclusion of loot boxes, respectively. Still, those Battlefront games found their audience and continue to attract players to this day. While EA publishing Battlefront 3 seems like it should have been a natural next move, the path to get to that point was not as straightforward as you think.
In 2020, Kotaku reported that a Battlefront spin-off with open-world elements codenamed Project Viking was canceled. EA wanted its Vancouver and Criterion Studios to quickly make Project Viking to hit a Fall 2020 deadline, but by early 2019 the project was canceled when it became clear the studios could not handle such a tight turnaround.
It’s unclear if this game would’ve been titled Battlefront 3 outright. Still, this is another example of publishers prioritizing hitting deadlines over realizing the potential of a new Battlefront game. That again may stem from the constraints and realities of developing a game with a license, which can come with requirements on release timing and financial considerations that make profitability, let alone explosive growth that mega publishers like EA expect , all the more challenging. As of now, nothing has filled the Star Wars multiplayer shooter void since 2017.
However, recent reports indicate that EA and DICE are finally planning to make Battlefront 3 following EA's controversial sale to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. This came at a cost, as Bloomberg reports BioWare was shut down--and Mass Effect Universe canceled--in favor of this game. Even if this finally is the version of Battlefront 3 that launches, the game will always have the blood of BioWare--and hundreds of laid off developers--on its hands through no fault of its developers.
When I eventually play Battlefront 3, there will be a part of me always thinking about the games sacrificed to make it a reality. Greenlighting it was apparently an either-or choice for EA leadership. That’s a cursed mindset to be in when thinking about Battlefront 3, as there’s a universe where I could’ve been playing a game bearing this title as early as 2006 and Mass Effect Universe would still be in development.
So what is the curse of Star Wars Battlefront 3? Is a Star Wars shooter of its kind just doomed to fail and never see the light of day? I don’t think so. The real game development curse that all of these canceled or troubled versions of Battlefront 3 represent is this: Even games that seem like they should be sure things can succumb to the demanding corporate whims, politics, and deadlines of the video game industry.