And just like that the inspired revival of Free Radicals Star Wars: Battlefront 3 has officially been cancelled. In a blog post shared on the Frontwire website yesterday, company president Tony Romanelli confirmed that LucasFilm has in fact issued a cease-and-desist order, which halts development immediately.
“On Wednesday June 22, 2016, we received a letter from Lucasfilm requesting that we halt production of Galaxy in Turmoil with any Star Wars related IP at once,” says Romanelli. “Rather than laying down at the first sign of trouble, I requested a meeting with the Lucasfilm executives to discuss our project and to find some common ground to work with. Honestly, I didn’t expect too much negotiation to occur. But much to my surprise, executives at the top of Lucasfilm agreed to meet. A week later, that meeting took place.”
Romanelli went on to describe what the future holds for Galaxy in Turmoil:
“Our highly publicized project as you have come to know it will no longer be a Star Wars game inspired by Battlefront,” he says. “Upon speaking with Lucasfilm, they informed us that they have no issue with a Battlefront inspired game that is not using the Star Wars IP itself. Regardless of what some have said, all of our code, sounds and many other non-Star Wars assets have been created in-house, which means they are indeed owned by us.
“Going forward, Frontwire Studios will be pivoting away from Star Wars and embarking on a mission to create a new, original game in a never before seen universe. Our game will still have massive 64-player battles, ground-to-space combat, destructible capital ships, and a full single-player campaign. We will also still be releasing Galaxy in Turmoil on Steam as planned and it will remain a free game.”