Hello Battlefrontians! MAY THE 4th be with you! This is very interesting, and a big thanks to “maul362″ for the heads up. In an in-depth article with Eurogamer, Free Radical Co-Founders David Doak and Steve Ellis, bear their teeth and tell us how LucasArts basically destroyed any hopes of them releasing Battlefront 3.

Battlefront 3 had started in mid-2006, and development continued until early 2008. Then things changed. “Steve and I began thinking that the dates were looking a bit tight for the first one,” says Doak, “so we thought we’d do what we had never done before and let LucasArts know our concerns. Because LucasArts had been so good to work with, we thought they’d see the sense of what we were saying. And that coincided with Jim Ward not being there one day.”

This is fairly accurate with all of the reported rumors and facts.

“The appointment of Darrell Rodriguez as president of LucasArts was announced on April 2nd 2008. He wasn’t the only new face. LucasArts was making sweeping changes as part of a new strategy, the first step of which was cutting their outgoings in half. Huge numbers of staff were fired, an entire layer of management was removed, and countless projects were canned. “For a long time we talked of LucasArts as the best relationship we’d ever had with a publisher,” says Ellis. “Then in 2008 that disappeared, they were all either fired or left. Then there was a new guy called Darrell Rodriguez, who had been brought in to do a job and it was more to do with cost control than making any games. And the games that we were making for them were costly.”

That’s crazy..

“LucasArts hadn’t paid us for six months,” says Norgate “and were refusing to pass a milestone so we would limp along until the money finally ran out. They knew what they were doing, and six months of free work to pass on to Rebellion wasn’t to be sniffed at.” Part of the eventual agreement between LucasArts and Free Radical saw certain assets passed on to Rebellion Studios. For a time LucasArts was tempted by the thought of a hastily put together Battlefront 3, but nothing came of it. When presented with the allegations put forth by this investigation, LucasArts said simply that it does not comment on rumour and speculation.”

So by the sounds of it, like everything else in this world, it boils down to that dirty five letter word: M-O-N-E-Y.

Definitely a good read! Lets hear some thoughts and opinions!

Check out the full article here.