According to co-founder David Doak of the now-closed ontwikkelstudio Free Radical, LucasArts developing Star Wars Battlefront III has been sabotaged. The publisher made the developer ‘bleeding to death’, which is also the project died.
In an extensive article from Eurogamer about the history of Free Radical, co-founder David Doak expands on Battlefront III. The third in the Battlefront series was developed by Free Radical, but the project was cancelled and the studio was at the end of 2008 close. In the article accuses Doak publisher LucasArts the project deliberately to make soap to have helped. A bankruptcy of the studio, which was then partially acquired by Crytek, was therefore inevitable.
Doak told Eurogamer that LucasArts, the studio for six more months had paid. The publisher had with money over the bridge if a certain milestone in the development process was approved, but that approval never came. According to Doak left LucasArts, the studio that way ‘bleeding to death’; when the money was there for the Free Radical no other option than to close the doors. Doak speaks in the article of ‘psychopaths that the studio wanted to destroy’. Why LucasArts the project and the studio undermined would have, is not from Doaks statement.
The work was at that time by LucasArts transferred to the ontwikkelstudio Rebellion, that Battlefront III would go on to finish. That has never happened however, and so ended up Battlefront III in the trash. According to another co-founder of Free Radical, Steve Ellis, the game was at that time already ‘as good as finished’. The studio had, according to Ellis, even though additional people have been taken in the preparation of the successor of Battlefront III.
Doak claims to be contractually protected against the actions of LucasArts, but that was according to the developer. His waning studio, and he himself did not have the financial means that were necessary to file a lawsuit in an attempt to make a claim under the in the clauses set fees.
With his statements gives Doak insight into the conditions in which Free Radical is under-gone. Until now it was not known that the results of the PlayStation 3 game Haze were disappointing and the Free Radical no publisher could be found for Timesplitters 4. LucasArts has not yet responded to the role that the company, according to Doak has played in the demise of Free Radical and Battlefront III. Tweakers.net the company has to request a statement and still waiting for answer.