Where is Star Wars Battlefront III?
With Respawns announcement of new Star Wars games in development, none of which being Battlefront, when will we see the elusive title and from who?
Respawn Entertainment announced, last week, that they are currently developing three Star Wars games…a surprise to be sure but a welcome one.
In addition to a sequel to the beloved Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, they will be developing a first-person shooter game led by Peter Hirschmann, who co-created Medal of Honor and was the former VP of development at LucasArts, and a strategy game by Bit Reactor, a studio made up of XCOM veterans.
The new Star Wars Jedi game will obviously create huge waves upon release and I am extremely excited for whatever this strategy game may turn out to be. But with the announcement of this first-person shooter game, Respawn was quick to make sure that we all knew that this was not a third installment to EA’s Battlefront games.
With the previous two being made by DICE, I am not entirely surprised by this news, but I do think that whatever it is will be strong, especially coming from Respawn. Be it a Republic Commando style game, Dark Forces style, or something completely new, there are a lot of options and great storytelling to be done.
But that is not really what I am here to talk about, exciting as it is. What I want to talk about is: Where is Battlefront III, and why does the third installment of these games stay so elusive?
To start, DICE did have a very rough launch of the second Battlefront game that they released in 2017. It was riddled with microtransactions that made it impossible to gain certain upgrades and hero units without forking over some money.
From there though, they completely revamped this system and made an easily obtainable system to upgrade weapons and heroes just by playing the game. And boy, anyone who has played that game knows, it is an incredibly well made Star Wars game.
The graphics feel real, the sound design fits the universe and it looks like you are really fighting the battles of the movies. There was also a serviceable enough story that gave some new information about the downfall of the Empire.
The one thing it really lacked was a robust space combat system like the Battlefront games of the PS2 era. There were dog fights above battles and in space but these felt disconnected from the battle happening down on the ground.
It was all just really well done besides a few minor things. There was continued support to the game and new characters and mechanics added.
That was until April 29 of 2020, DICE released their last update for the game and began to move developers over to Battlefield 2042 to finish polishing. At this time, the Battlefront audience was still continuing to grow due to releases on sale and the EA desktop integration with Xbox Game Pass.
There was a large audience at hand that was just sort of abandoned and left to enjoy what they had already. Hunger for more, but with nothing more to come.
Sadly, Battlefield 2042 came out with a massive flop and middling reviews. To which DICE has now said they are working on the next Battlefield instead of a third Battlefront game.
Just less than a year later on Jan. 31, 2021, Disney announced it was ending its contract with EA and would no longer be exclusively working with them to produce Star Wars video games.
With Star Wars Battlefront II, now a game riddled with bots, bugs and die-hard fans still wanting to play, abandoned by DICE, it seems like a long shot to get a third Battlefront game.
For me, the perfect Battlefront III would have a few core elements: a robust, story-driven single-player campaign, a supported multiplayer mode with exciting updates, and the holy grail of Battlefront dreams that people have been asking for since Battlefront II on the PlayStation 2, seamless ground-to-space combat.
For the story, a Star Wars Battlefront game covering different battles of the sequel era would be best. There are many details still left open-ended and anything to strengthen the plot of the sequel movies would be welcome.
An alternative would be something in the High Republic to promote their new era or something based around a Disney Plus show.
For a supported multiplayer, I think DICE did a great job when they overhauled a lot of their progression issues, but one place they could get better is introducing more heroes that people ask for and developing different gameplay modes.
There is some repetitiveness with the Battlefront games that I think could easily be broken up with some changes to game modes. This could be made especially dynamic if they could master my third dream.
A seamless ground-to-space combat mode would change Star Wars Battlefront as a series forever. There could be dynamic battles where the star cruisers could be battling in space with each side dogfighting and trying to destroy critical systems all while massive ground battles take place.
The space battle being tipped one way could affect the ground and vice versa. There could truly be small stories told just through a single match of a game mode. That was always the most exciting part of Star Wars Battlefront II when there was a story to tell friends after about what happened.
If I were Disney, I would give DICE one more crack at it. I think DICE was on the right path with Star Wars Battlefront II and could innovate upon it, but as long as whoever has it next learns from DICE’s successes and failures, then there is a good chance the perfect Battlefront III is a possibility.
As a huge Star Wars fan and Battlefront fan, I am really hoping and best of luck to whoever gets to take the next shot.