Star Wars: Battlefront III
Free Radical version
Free Radical built a nearly complete Battlefront that moved seamlessly from ground battles into space, but LucasArts cancelled it before release.
Quick facts
- Existence state
- Never Born
- Peak stage
- near release
- Research confidence
- high
- Last verified
What it was
The unreleased third entry in the original Star Wars Battlefront series, developed by Free Radical Design.
The game combined a story campaign with large multiplayer battles and a signature ground-to-orbit transition across ambitious maps.
Existence timeline
LucasArts contracts Free Radical to create a new Battlefront.
Campaign, multiplayer maps and cross-surface battles take shape.
Console builds contain extensive playable content while the teams dispute progress.
LucasArts ends Free Radical's contract before shipment.
Developers and preservation finds reveal how much of the game survived.
Why it ended
A deteriorating publisher relationship, missed milestones and strategic change ended the contract in 2008 despite extensive completed content.
Last confirmed trace
Development builds, long gameplay recordings, concept art and later-discovered Wii material preserve unusually large portions of the game.
What it left behind
Its surviving systems became a benchmark against which later Battlefront games were compared, while parts of its design moved into Elite Squadron.
Questions this archive answers
Why was Star Wars: Battlefront III cancelled?
A deteriorating publisher relationship, missed milestones and strategic change ended the contract in 2008 despite extensive completed content.
Was Battlefront III really almost complete?
The strongest verified milestone maps to near_release under Arrival Score V1.
How we classified it
The proposed archive unit never reached ordinary public access in the form being documented.
The strongest verified milestone maps to near_release under Arrival Score V1.
Sources & verification
Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.