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We almost thought Battlefront 3 wouldn't happen - after numerous mumblings in 2006 and 2008 about a sequel to the excellent Battlefront 2, it was finally announced that Free Radical Design, the studio originally in line to develop the game, had lost the rights to continue developing it despite having been in development for two years. Fortunately, EA Digital Illusions CE (or DICE) is now at the helm and the game is due out on all formats (PC, PS4 and Xbox One) sometime this year.
Seasoned FPS fans will know DICE for its work on the Battlefield series, the latest entry of which currently supports 64 simultaneous player online multiplayer matches. This bodes well for Battlefront, as it could mean larger, more involving space battles and fights on terra firma. However, it's been made clear that Star Wars Battlefront will be very much "DICE's interpretation" of the series rather than a direct sequel, so we could see something completely different to previous games.
"There are absolutely things in the previous Battlefront games that you'll recognise and remember, but DICE wants to put its own flavour on it," EA executive vice president Patrick Soderlund told Eurogamer. "That's the only way we can do it. Hence it's called Star Wars: Battlefront, without a 3 at the end. We want to say it's something new."
Star Wars Battlefront 3 release date
There's no set date for the launch of Star Wars Battlefront yet, but it's currently slated for a "Holiday 2015" release window. According to Tech Times, EA CEO Andrew Wilson announced at an EA investors meeting in October that Battlefront will be released in time for Christmas to tie in with the new Star Wars film, Episode VII: The Force Awakens. This would certainly seem an apt time to release the game, but the official trailer below states that we should "see more" of the game this spring, so hopefully we'll be given a firmer release date very soon.
Star Wars Battlefront 3 gameplay trailer
Details on Battlefront's gameplay are still thin on the ground, but at least the official trailer shown at last year's E3 gives us a good idea of some of the playable maps we can expect to see in the final game. Taken from incredibly early in-game footage, the frozen wastelands of Hoth and the dense forests of Endor look absolutely stunning, and the detailed characters certainly look as though they'll do plenty of justice to the game's source material.
Built using the Frostbite 3 engine, we can see snowspeeders gliding across Hoth battle stations and AT-STs stomping across a very early frame network of basic polygons. There's also a brief glimpse of a tense speeder bike chase through the forests of Endor. It's not clear whether certain camera angles are part of a cinematic sequence, but we certainly hope to see sections like this make it into the final game.
Star Wars Battlefront 3 Battlelog
One thing we do know is that Battlefront will use Battlefield 4's Battlelog service, EA's web interface for tracking your personal stats and unlockables. Battlelog also lets you use a browser to see what servers or matches are available at the time and will pre-load them in the background for you, suggesting that Battlefront's multiplayer will function in a very similar way.
The news comes courtesy of Uprise's official studio page, the Swedish EA studio behind the service. Alongside Battlefield: Hardline, Star Wars Battlefront is listed as 'coming soon' to Battlelog on its main Battlefield 4 banner. While details for Android and iOS are still unconfirmed for Battlefront, we'd be very surprised if they weren't supported when the game launches later this year.
