The founder of Free Radical, the studio responsible for developing Battlefront III all those years ago, has hit out at LucasArts accusing them of joining the Dark side.
Many fans may not remember having played Star Wars: Battlefront 3 mostly because the game never saw the light of day. The game is all but cancelled, with the publisher, LucasArts, not commenting on whether the game is still in development or not.
However, seeing how rumours of the game have been doing the rounds since 2006 and does not even have a teaser trailer or an announcement at any E3 since then, one can safely assume that the game was definitely in development but put on hold.
As for the development stage, well it seems that the studio that was first responsible for developing the game, Free Radical, were left living a nightmare as their relationship with LucasArts soured after a change in management.
David Doak, the co-founder of Free Radical, explained that they started off having a great relationship with LucasArts before the new management was ushered in and how they had an adverse effect on the development process.
“(w)e went from talking to people who were passionate about making games to talking to psychopaths who insisted on having an unpleasant lawyer in the room.”
Doak continued with a slightly stronger mouthed approach where he used the term “psychopaths” when referring to LucasArts stating that he was involved in high level meetings with the studio that wanted to “destroy” them.
As for the development process itself, Doak summed it up when he said, “The dream job which I once loved had become a nightmarish torture.”
Graeme Norgate, the audio director at Free Radical, went on to explain how the publisher deliberately sabotaged the development of the game as well, "LucasArts hadn't paid us for six months 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."
Free Radical was later acquired by CryTek and is now CryTek UK.
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