Redditor claims to have received the only physical copy of the canceled Star Wars Battlefront 3 video game from Free Radical, which has caused a stir among Star Wars fans online. But don’t expect it, because it’s probably not what it seems.
An image that looks like a Star Wars Battlefront 3 PSP playback disc has been released Reddit user MissFeepitas well as a few photos of the game running on the PlayStation portable console.
Redditor says they got the disc through a family friend who was testing the LucasArts game around the time Battlefront 3 was being developed. They were given a PSP disc to play, but never returned.
The images show the download screen, the main menu, and the single-player game mode selection screen, which shows the “Instant Action”, “Company” and “Galactic Conquest” options. All three game modes were included in the first two Battlefront games, although Redditor also mentions that their family friend remembers playing Capture the Flag, Battle Against AI and Conquest.
But, as one Redditor noted, the photos most likely show an early build of Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron, a PSP spin-off released in 2009. Game mode selection screen of course it looks strangely similar on those images that were published on Reddit where two clone soldiers look at each other on the sides of the screen. Although the disc is labeled Star Wars Battlefront 3, it may have simply been the game’s internal title before its release.
Initially Redditor said they were interested in selling the disc and they were curious to find out what it could bring. Others, however, suggested trying to copy its contents and export it to a ROM file – which can be run via modern PSP emulators – for saving.
However, duplication of games, even abolished decades ago, raises several legal issues regarding copyright infringement and the NDA. But if the game is ever copied and distributed, we will know exactly what MissFeepit got in their hands.
What could be
Star Wars Battlefront 3 has remained something of an enticing mystery since it appeared more than a decade ago. The development of the game was transferred to TimeSplitters Free Radical in 2006, but it was not officially presented until canceled two years later.
Sources inside the studio have been talking about the canceled project ever since, Free Radical co-founder and director David Doak said. Eurogamer it was the most ambitious project the studio was working on at the time. Unlike its predecessors, Battlefront 3 would allow you to move smoothly from ground warfare to space combat, allowing you to board a star fighter and ascend to the battle that takes place in the skies above you.
“It was so ambitious because we had to populate such an environment on such a scale, so we had hard nuts,” Doak told Eurogamer. “We’ve been constantly trying to improve it, and it’s been going well. In fact, everything went so well that we were going to do two, and they allowed us to do some really interesting things with mythology. ”
However, Free Radical’s relationship with LucasArts became increasingly difficult as their vision of the project split. Eventually, the game was completely preserved, and Free Radical agreed to transfer some assets to Rebellion Studios, which later released elite squadrons.
So while the PSP drive shared by MissFeepit is unlikely to be Free Radical’s Star Wars Battlefront 3, they may well have some similarities. It would be interesting to know what assets were transferred from the canceled project to the elite squadrons, and how they were presented in the early assembly of the game.
The leaked Star Wars Battlefront 3 gameplay has made its way online in the past. Back in 2012 en an hour of gameplay was uploaded to YouTube but has since been removed after Disney issued a copyright claim. In short fragments of frames have since been downloaded.
https://www.techradar.com/news/no-the-only-known-copy-of-star-wars-battlefront-3-hasnt-been-found/
