Then there was Star Wars: Battlefront III, a project LucasArts entrusted to developer Free Radical, of TimeSplitters fame. Industry veteran and Free Radical founder David Doak remembers the excitement that was in the air when LucasArts pitched his team. We were looked at like reliable hands for making shooters, he says. We had never done the work-for-hire thing before, and we always wanted to make our own thing. However, we could see that there was a lot of uncertainty in the industry. Its like, Well okay, that sounds like a good opportunity.
Free Radical pitched an ambitious design to LucasArts, in which the game would seamlessly transition from running and gunning on the ground to flying a vessel into space, where another war was being waged. Within that, the seeds for disaster were sewn, Doak says. I think that core design pillar of the game was slightly untenable because of the scale.
Free Radical worked on the Battlefront franchise for over two years, trying to get its vision to work. The art team moved on to designing assets for Battlefront IV even while Battlefront III was struggling to reach its intended vision.
Red flags were waved internally at Free Radical, but on LucasArts end, the game was looking like a smash hit. Development on Battlefront III seemed to be going well. We kept getting these code drops that were amazing, an ex-LucasArts employee remembers. The big hook of going from ground to air to space seamlessly totally worked. Piloting a capital ship, getting out and running around in the ships interior, and jumping into an escape pod and rocketing down to land again holy s---! We thought [Battlefront III] was going to turn the industry on its head. Free Radical was meeting all of their milestones. Even Jim Ward would sit in those core team meetings and would say things like, So this is shipping next month, right? And this was 2007. This is a joke because it was looking so good, especially compared to Fracture and Force Unleashed at the time, which were just troubled the whole way. And we would all laugh, thinking, Wow. If it looks this good now for a game thats shipping in 2008, theres not going to be any problem.
Difficulties arose early in 2008. Free Radical started missing milestones, and the new builds of the game that were coming in featured major stability issues. The design called for 100-player multiplayer matches. Wed get 20 players in a match and it would just bog down, a source close to the project says. Then Free Radical started cutting content. Theyre like, Ok, were going to go from 100 to 50 players online. Thats still really good; its still more than anyone else. Thats fine. Were going to cut this single-player campaign down in scope. So then the cuts started coming, which is all fairly standard stuff. But we just couldnt get an estimate. It was starting to become apparent that they werent going to make the [release] date that they said they were going to make, and they werent being very clear about why or what the new dates would be. Internally, because this was right when Haze was shipping, we were all certain that they had pulled tons of resources off Battlefront to finish up Haze, and they wouldnt tell us what was going on. We tried to get our producers over there and they wouldnt let us into the building. The relationship just started fraying.
At that time, Jim Ward stepped down as LucasArts president and was replaced by Darrell Rodriguez, a new overseer who a former associate sized up as not f---ing around. Rodriguez pushed Free Radical hard, creating a tense working relationship between the two companies.
Doak recalls this time, his words quiet and melancholy. I wouldnt even talk about it personally because it completely did my head in, he says. I think, particularly, because of the role that I was creative director and also the front man for the company, I got to do all of 
the putting on a brave face and smiling, then going behind doors and having the arguments, and then going back telling my guys we have to work harder this time. And after that thinking, Youre going to miss the next milestone because I know they [LucasArts] dont want you to pass it. I really hated that. It just completely stopped me from functioning. You dont believe its actually a real thing until it happens to you, but I was in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Tears all over the place. It was just a really horrible time. I wasnt there for the very end.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Free Radical audio director Graeme Norgate revealed that LucasArts stopped funding the project around this time.
LucasArts hadnt paid us for six months, and were refusing to pass a milestone so we would limp along until the money finally ran out, he said. They knew what they were doing.
In early 2009, Free Radical released a company video that made fun of LucasArts and Star Wars. In it, a representative of LucasArts tells a Free Radical employee, We have to pull the game. It has become too good. You need to make it worse, or we are pulling the game. We need to make products with the Star Wars name, but with little content. Its about making a f---ing bucket full of money, dont you understand? After an exchange of words, the Free Radical employee responds, You guys are a--holes.
We sent Free Radical an email asking for them to remove [the video], and they refused to take it down, a former LucasArts employee says. That was one of the last straws for Darrell.
Ties with Free Radical were severed, but the fate of Battlefront didnt remain in limbo for long. LucasArts creative lead/creative director Adam Orth teamed with former SOCOM developer Slant Six to create a new vision for a Battlefront sequel.
The disastrous Free Radical relationship had a profound effect on LucasArts business moving forward, an ex-LucasArts staffer remembers. At that time, the idea was to make [Slant Sixs] Battlefront III downloadable-only. You could not push through a new major console project at LucasArts at that time. There was no appetite for it. Even as early as 2009, the powers that be at Lucasfilm would not agree with that kind of expenditure. I think the board at Lucas had just lost their stomach for the risk there. Slant Sixs Battlefront eventually met the same fate as Free Radicals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hk84nSsAv4
