Former Star Wars Battlefront 3 Dev Claims It Was '99 Percent' Done, but the History Is Complicated

ign.com:

"I feel like it's been long enough now to come out and say Star Wars Battlefront III was gonnae [sic] be legit incredible and the fact it got cancelled 2 yards from the finish line is an absolute crime," former Star Wars Battlefront 3 developer Michael Barclay tweeted over the weekend.

Barclay was referring to Free Radical's Star Wars Battlefront 3, which was in development until it was canceled in 2008. His statement came in response to a simple question posed at developers: "Alright #gamedev folks, what's your 'one that got away?' It can be an IP you wanted to work on, a studio you wanted to work for, anything of the sort."

Barclay, who now works as a lead designer at Naughty Dog, shared his own story and added, "Gamers don't know what they were robbed of."

I feel like it’s been long enough now to come out and say Star Wars Battlefront III was gonnae be legit incredible and the fact it got cancelled 2 yards from the finish line is an absolute crime. Gamers don’t know what they were robbed of. https://t.co/zZUu8JR3iV

Barclay's claim isn't a new one. Way back in 2012, Free Radical cofounder Steve Ellis also claimed that Star Wars Battlefront 3 was "99 percent done." This prompted a former LucasArts employee to lash out at the studio, which has since undergone multiple iterations before reopening under Deep Silver in 2021.

"This 99 percent complete stuff is just bullsh*t," the former employee claimed to GameSpot at the time. "A generous estimate would be 75 percent of a mediocre game."

They went on to claim that Free Radical continually missed milestones and that the game didn't work in 2007, but that LucasArts was "desperate" for what was then a next-gen follow-up to Battlefront on Xbox 360 and PS3, not the least because Star