Do you remember the first time you spawned into an intense battle straight out of your favorite Star Wars movie? 2004’s original Star Wars: Battlefront game was the first to offer players such a surreal experience. The 2005 sequel took things one step further … and then there was nothing.
Until Electronic Arts swooped in a decade later and Star Wars: Battlefront (not the 2004 game) arrived.
Once again, only two Battlefront sequels were made before things seemingly came to a standstill again. Many fans fear that the series may be over for good – at least under the EA banner. Comicbook.com reported recently that, based on a tweet from writer Tom Henderson, there might not be a Battlefront III coming anytime soon … or ever.
The migration from #Battlefield2042 back to other projects has begun.
— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) November 9, 2021
Criterion is now moving back to their Need for Speed title and the DICE studio is moving to their next title, which is expected to be another Battlefield title and not Battlefront III.
This isn’t surprising to many fans of the game, especially since the announcement that the team working on Battlefront II would no longer be pushing out new updates.
Fans also haven’t been thrilled with EA’s handling of the series since the company acquired its Star Wars license. Battlefront I completely lacks a single-player campaign and its features are mostly forgettable, while the sequel is infamous for a launch so controversial that it very well could have brought the entire series to a halt right then and there.
Thankfully, the more Dice worked to update Battlefront II, the better it got, and players can still enjoy the experience with everything that was added after the game’s initial launch. But anyone hoping for another sequel might be better off sticking with what we already have.
While EA might not be giving up its rights to Star Wars IP anytime soon (nothing has been confirmed or denied either way), efforts seem to be going toward multiplayer and arena-type gameplay rather than games in the style of the Battlefront franchise or even Jedi: Fallen Order, as evidenced by Star Wars: Hunters and continued updates to the free-to-play Galaxy of Heroes experience.
With Fallen Order, EA has proven that if they recruit the right studio to develop a game, the results are often worth the risk. But Battlefront titles have survived distribution changes once before (the originals were developed by LucasArts back when that still existed) and could do so again.
Now that Lucasfilm Games exists, perhaps it’s time to begin yet another era of Star Wars gaming – one that could provide players a little bit of everything, sans loot boxes and too many free-to-play mobile opportunities to keep track of.
Hey, they could even remaster or remake some older titles. You never know.
Itching to play the classic Star Wars: Battlefront games? You can grab them on Steam now.