Fans are pretty certain that the likelihood of EA producing Star Wars Battlefront III is now less than zero, following news that the publisher will be shuttering more studios in the coming months.
Terrible news: Electronic Arts just cancelled development of their Black Panther game, and shuttered the studio Cliffhanger Games in the process.
While it’s obviously never good news to hear of a developer being closed, you may be wondering… what exactly does this have to do with the chances of EA producing a third Star Wars Battlefront game?
Well, following news of Cliffhanger Studios closing down, IGN revealed that an internal email sent by EA Entertainment president Laura Miele revealed that the publisher will only be focusing on only a handful of their IPs moving forward, including “Battlefield, The Sims, Skate, and Apex Legends”.
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In a thread over on the r/StarWarsBattlefront subreddit, fans seem oddly alright with the news… mostly because of their dissatisfaction with how EA has handled the Star Wars IP.
“I'm okay with this, especially after EA cancelled that Black Panther game”, commented user kittenfrick.
“EA's become so unreliable lately. Remember that whole Disney deal where only EA would develop Star Wars games? Ugh, what a mess that was…”
“Don't get me wrong, it's very cool seeing how many people are coming together to play Battlefront 2. Even though there's a chance nothing was gonna happen any time soon, it was cool seeing people come together”, replied user Anarion89.
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“I do believe there will be another Battlefront in the future… Lucasfilms owns the Battlefront IP, so they can choose who to hire to make it. Similarly when the contract with EA ended, Lucasfilms hired Ubisoft to make Outlaws and Quantic Dream with Eclipse.”
Personally, as the other commenter noted, I think this might actually be a good thing for the Star Wars Battlefront franchise moving forward.
As LucasArts owns the rights to the Battlefront IP, they technically could produce a third entry, or even a third reboot of the franchise, without having to go through EA.
Whether or not they deem that to be a profitable venture or not is still to be decided, but given the recent uptick in support online… I think there’s a chance they’re at least thinking about.