UPDATE: Star Wars: Battlefront III Was Officially Released… in 2009

You Might Find My Lack of Faith Disturbing

On the subject of what’s been going on with me lately, I don’t even know where to start. Even with the helpful resources I’ve received, the job market’s a fucking nightmare because no employers follow up on shit anymore, and important things like dating and independent living are on hold until my income’s stable and consistent. The news makes me worried we’re a week away from Skynet under the “supervision” of infantile weirdos, and my family’s been seeing each other less than ever as though to make the state of the world that much more lonely and hopeless. So, in the meantime, I’ve not only been revising the hell out of comic series like ElectroNuke, but I’ve also been completely reformatting Shadow the Hedgehog: The Recollected Cut with unique fonts, custom cover art, and edited screenshots to use for chapter headings. I’m finding excuses to try new things and get the hell out of the house for something, my music library’s grown exponentially, and my game library has seen me either play and enjoy the Korean Sims successor inZOI (between that and Paralives, it’s almost a blessing that EA’s official Project Rene was cancelled) or reinstall, replay, and re-uninstall Borderlands 2 out of aggravation because that game is way harder than everyone makes it out to be.

What better time to get back into Star Wars?

Okay, for the record, I’m not a Star Wars fan anymore, and that mostly started with the sequel films—they’re not the worst things ever, but any interest I used to have in post-prequel continuations has long since faded thanks to them. Hell, one game I just rediscovered was Destiny 2, and I consider that far more enjoyable and fascinating than anything Star Wars-related now (I’ve also played my fair share of Starfield, and that itself has a leg up.) Of course, I realize now how confusingly bad the prequels are, but not for a lack of good ideas, hence my idea to rewrite them under the title Star Wars: The Recrusaded Cut (my cousin Ali, a longtime Star Wars fan, has been very enthusiastic about this project, so I feel obligated to go somewhere with it.) Regardless, not only do I still enjoy LEGO Star Wars and used to enjoy The Clone Wars when I was little, but I may, may not have, but probably did acquire two of my most awkward childhood crushes from the latter continuation: Ahsoka, who started off annoying only to age just about in sync with me since 2008, and Ventress as the first MILF crush I was too uncomfortable to admit. Obviously, the latter feels less weird to me than it did back then.

So, it was just in the past week that I started replaying The Force Unleashed, the grim tone and art design of which mesmerized me when I first read about it in Star Wars Insider, which led me to research Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron under some unknown circumstance. For reference, I explained in my lost media post here that, following the shutdown of Battlefront‘s developer Pandemic, Star Wars: Battlefront III was being developed by Free Radical Design. They missed numerous deadlines, and there was pressure by new LucasArts president Darrell Rodriguez to either rush development or halt it altogether, for what Free Radical employees have described as cost reduction tactics. At the same time, though, they were well behind on other projects like the doomed Haze and Timesplitters 4, and eventually, they failed to stabilize the game’s engine before the end of 2008. The project was cancelled, and lots of finger-pointing would be passed between Free Radical and LucasArts as to who was responsible. Even though it was probably both of them.

But that’s not the end of the story. Oh, no, it’s practically just the beginning.

These Aren’t the Builds You’re Looking For

Let’s start with the leaked builds of the game, as it really puts the point of this post in order. Ten years ago, a late prototype was extracted from an Xbox 360 development kit, which revealed the majority of the game minus frequent corruptions and bugs. This is dated at March 17, 2008 and leaked on January 20, 2016, and in the years since, the Free Radical Archive team has taken it upon themselves to fix many of its unfinished assets via modding. Because much of this has been covered here before, though, I should point out that not one… not two… but, count ’em, three late builds for the Wii have been recovered since the lost media post, the titles of which being r904, r907, and r911. All three are incomplete in their own respects—despite the fact that r911 has been dated mere weeks before the game’s cancellation, it seems the developers scrambled to make last-minute changes during that period, considering it’s just about as broken as the previous builds.

Now, I insinuated in the lost media post that there was this surreal emotional connection to Battlefront III that even I was surprised to realize I had. This is the byproduct of multiple factors in tandem, the most prominent of which are the gorgeous Coruscant map at nightfall and the royalty-free music used in Blameitonjorge’s lost media videos (I stopped watching his new material partly because of his recent webcam usage, but I still often find myself returning to his older uploads), the best in this case being sci-fi compositions like “Grey is the Sky” and “Missing You” by Three Chain Links. I’m drawn to lost media by the virtue of how eerily mystifying it proves, and this is a feeling that’s easier felt than said—save for all the strange mysteries you get to explore, it’s almost entirely experiential. For this reason, I find the unfinished nature of the prototype builds almost frustrating (emphasis on “almost”, as the ability to play it in any form is a privilege), not to mention emulating the Wii build requires a specific version of Dolphin and therefore has to be separate from my GameCube and Wii library. Until recently, the modded Xbox build was my best option, let alone anyone’s.

So, with that base covered, it’s at this point that we should circle back to Elite Squadron. This was the second Battlefront game developed by Rebellion Studios for the DS and the PlayStation Portable, but although the title’s formatted the same as that of Renegade Squadron, Elite Squadron is known to have repurposed whatever was left over from Battlefront III. I never took much of an interest in this entry, especially considering I’ve never owned or even played a PSP (I briefly owned a DS when I was little, but I’ll admit with reluctance to have only played Nintendogs for less than a week); also, I assumed based on its obscurity and mixed reception that it borrowed the story and characters from Battlefront III but otherwise featured zero resemblance. I later found out that it was originally to serve as the PSP port of Battlefront III, but the surprises didn’t stop after I started emulating it via PPSSPP.

Elite Squadron isn’t a barebones version of Battlefront III. Elite Squadron IS Battlefront III. For the most part.

For brevity’s sake, let’s set aside the fact that the Battlefront III trailer shown in my lost media post’s intro video as well as the game’s heading on that post was repurposed with little to no re-editing for Elite Squadron. To my pleasant surprise, Elite Squadron doesn’t sacrifice the more innovative aspects set to be introduced in Battlefront III, which overall was my biggest concern. In fact, the multi-layered map structure with land and space segments is fully intact, if indeed with short cinematic transitions due to the PSP’s hardware limitations. The maps I’m most interested in—mostly Coruscant, Cato Nemoidia, Dantooine, and Bespin, as these were the first maps added to the slow but ambitious Battlefront II project, Battlefront III: Legacy—are all borderline the same as their console counterparts, with only minor set pieces and areas removed. The map sizes are honestly impressive, although the PSP in general seems to have been remarkably robust for a mobile system in its time (another game I’ve seen videos of and planned on playing is the 0.01 prototype of Manhunt 2, which, besides being one of that game’s earliest builds and produced by initial developer Rockstar Vienna, really goes to show how well the PSP handles the game with so few quality reductions.) It features almost every map from Battlefront III, with the only exceptions being Desolation Station and Dathomir; the DS version does feature both, but Dathomir looks nothing like what Free Radical had in mind, amounting to a musty armpit like Dagobah as opposed to a colorless purgatory of jagged mountains.

Oh, right, there’s a campaign in both these games. Both games feature more or less the same cast, but suffice it to say, their stories are told in notably different ways. For the most part. What stays the same is that two brothers, X1 and X2, were cloned from the same jedi, Falon Grey, but upon Order 66 being initiated, only X2 follows in his father’s footsteps—X1 instead joins the Empire and, by the time the New Republic rises after Return of the Jedi, has become a similar Sith lord to Palpatine. Now, that sounds big and grandiose as a story that happens in the background of pretty much the entire pre-Disney saga, or at least starting during Revenge of the Sith and ending sometime after Return of the Jedi, but I’m gonna be predictably unpopular here: I really don’t think it’s all that compelling in Battlefront III. The full story of that game as far as we know is told in the prototypes—in the latest Wii build, it seems to be completely intact through all the bugs and corruption—and none of the characters introduced are especially well-developed. X2 gets boring quickly; there’s little to nothing behind Ferroda and Grey besides “generic jedi”, which, in the words of Rich Evans from RedLetterMedia, is the blandest thing a character can be; Shara’s not characterized as well as the game seems to think she is, not to mention the strange, uh… let’s just say “porn quality” in her line delivery; and X1 becomes way too much like Palpatine after displaying very little motivation for resenting the jedi. Even Luke and Kylo Ren were given better reasons in The Last Jedi, not to mention the point made in The Acolyte regardless of how it failed with audiences, but… well, let’s not wade into the choppy post-Disney waters.

On the contrary, Elite Squadron takes Battlefront III‘s story and tells it in the fashion of Battlefront II‘s, only through X2’s narration instead of the 501st’s. Now, sure, Battlefront III certainly feels more cinematic, and the scenes are far more intimate and far less fleeting, but I can’t say the characterization is propped up much higher at all from Elite Squadron’s. There are details missing from that game’s story, like the tension between X2 and Kota on Dantooine—I’m actually okay with that, considering Kota’s just a grade-A dick to X2 in that scene—but these are all present in the DS version, albeit text-only. Still doubtful about whether the story’s suitably intact? Well, at the time of Elite Squadron‘s release, one of its most praised aspects was, in fact, its narrative. Go figure! Granted, the most exciting moment of Elite Squadron‘s story that sadly isn’t present in Battlefront III is not X1’s plan to clone Luke for a new imperial army. Rather, it’s when X1 unleashes… I’m not even kidding… sinister dark side WOOKIEES on X2 at the Mustafar facility. Instantly, I was reminded of a suggestion RedLetterMedia had for Rise of Skywalker well before its release, which was Palpatine being the center of an evil Ewok cult on Endor, so… you know… that’s not what happens verbatim at this point in the story, but I’m more than willing to accept it. It’s so delightfully bizarre.

Now, I saved this bit for last, as the background info goes beyond the realm of Battlefront III and in favor of Elite Squadron. I believe I’ve stated here that Free Radical was plotting out Battlefront IV before Battlefront III was even finished, and their ideas included a branching version of the pre-Disney saga where what-if scenarios would’ve seen heroes and villains switch sides, like a redeemed Darth Vader and Luke as a Sith lord. Other alternate events included a violent attack on Kamino following the Battle of Geonosis, but it should go without saying that this game was also cancelled. The magical part is that Free Radical considered a complex class customization system for Battlefront IV, the cutest piece of associated material being a “rainbow trooper” drawn by an art director for Darrell Rodriguez’s son. Which is ironic, given Rodriguez is claimed to have played a key role in the game’s cancellation. Well, almost like a loving tribute to Free Radical, Elite Squadron features a customization system much like what they visualized for Battlefront IV. Not only can custom equipment loadouts be saved, but all four sides—the Republic, the Separatists, the Rebellion, and the Empire—can have their heads, uniforms, and two-tone color schemes personalized, and these changes affect all other associated units and vehicles! That’s it, roll those flamboyantly gay AT-STs out! We’re gonna conquer the galaxy while flushed pinker than Santa Claus’s nose!

Of course, this is in no way a slight against Battlefront III. Like I said, the ability to play it at all is a blessing, and the Free Radical Archive’s mods have made the Xbox build more playable than ever. I mean, the dumping of three whole prototypes for the Wii port alone has demonstrated how much there is to play and discover. I’ve found thorough enjoyment in emulating Elite Squadron over the course of this past week based on how heartwarming it is to experience the character customization planned for Battlefront IV and… you know… a fully complete, stable, and official build of Battlefront III (I haven’t even brought up the fan project to remake it in a modern engine, which became an unrelated sci-fi game following the inevitable cease-and-desist order), but who knows? I just might alternate between it and the modded Xbox build just for accuracy’s sake. Then again, I feel like my days to experience the Wii builds are already numbered, considering there’s only one true detail that makes it superior to all other copies.

That of course is an aging mobster in witness protection announcing that “THIS IS A BLANK… PLACEHOLDER… SOUND” between Battle Droids shouting, “Spread out!” on repeat. I think there’s more depth in that than in the story of the game’s campaign and development combined. Just a hunch on my end.