The cancelled Star Wars: First Assault game has surprisingly resurfaced, in the form of a rough and ready beta footage video that has popped up on YouTube by way of Reddit. This is the project that Disney/LucasArt binned in 2012. Perhaps most importantly, it was to be the first game in a series that would eventually finish with a fully fledged Star Wars Battlefront 3.
This is entirely seperate from DICE’s upcoming title, and it has nothing to do with the canned 2006 Battlefront 3 title by Free Radical either. Star Wars: First Assault was being made internally at LucasArts, with the intention for it to be a downloadable PS3 and Xbox 360 title, according to industry reports. GamesRadar had stated the game was moments away from a winter 2012 public beta, when Disney “declared a media blackout.”
The new footage shows 20 minutes of a technical beta that apparently ran on Xbox Live before the title was canned. According to the user who posted the video, “the beta only had this one level and I couldn’t spawn bots or add another player.” In the demo, we can see a Tatooine level through the eyes of a Stormtrooper. He collects guns and tests them out, as well as collecting power-ups like turrets and explosives dropped off by craft overhead.
Supposedly the plan was for Star Wars: First Assault to land in summer 2013, which would be followed by a game with the working title Wingman a year later, which would include vehicles and more sizable maps. After that, Battlefront 3 would arrive with all the trimmings, plus a single-player campaign and epic space battles. Kotaku pins the binning of First Assault on the reshuffling of projects when Disney took over LucasArts. All projects were frozen in preparation for the deal and then reappraised following the takeover. First Assault didn’t make the cut, and we might never know why.
From the demo, it looks like a serviceable Call of Duty clone with some interesting ideas, but perhaps it is better it was left unfinished.
What do you think? Would you have been interested in playing Star Wars: First Assault? Sound off below and let us know.
