Star Wars Gaming Renaissance Set to Continue With Long-Awaited Battlefront 3

Word that Star Wars: Battlefront 3 is in development is perhaps the only silver lining coming from the sweeping layoffs at Electronic Arts. After the gaming publisher was acquired by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) and private investment funds, including Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, in the largest leveraged buyout in history, jobs have been cut at Maxis, Full Circle, and Ripple Effect, and legendary studio BioWare has been shuttered.

A restructuring has come as part of the layoffs, and EA has teased some new projects that have been green lit in this new, much-derided era for the company. One such project will come from a collaboration between Battlefield 6 developer DICE and Respawn Entertainment, most recently known for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Part of the official announcement, from a memo sent internally throughout EA, notes that Battlefield 6 was a big success, though that didn't stop layoffs affecting its development team.

DICE & Respawn Partnership Will Reportedly Produce Battlefront 3

While the announced project was not given any more details officially, sources informed Variety that it will be Star Wars: Battlefront 3, the long-awaited follow-up to DICE's Battlefront 2 (2017). Details beyond that have not been provided. On paper, it's a smart collaboration. DICE has a long history with Battlefield and, of course, the Battlefront reboot duology (the defunct Pandemic Studios made the two originals), and Respawn entertainment has both Star Wars credentials and shooter expertise, having created Apex Legends.

If the partnership between DICE and Respawn has just been established—post PIF acquisition—then the project is in its very earliest stages, and is likely to be years away. Demand for Battlefront 3 has been fairly strong, even during the original series' run, but picked up a lot of new momentum after the second successful season of Andor last year.

Battlefront 3 Will Contribute to a New Star Wars Gaming Golden Age

Andor has been an outlier in a rather lackluster Star Wars movie and television slate under Disney’s stewardship of the franchise. Its gaming side even suffered due to an exclusivity deal with EA, which admittedly produced the two new Battlefront titles, both of which struggled at launch for various reasons. Recent years, however, have seen a big resurgence for what has historically been a creative and celebrated facet of the franchise.

Respawn's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order in 2019 was a taste of what was to come, with its sequel, Jedi: Survivor, standing as a major improvement on its souslike-meets-metroidvania gameplay. Jedi: Survivor has now been followed by Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws, Bit Reactor's Star Wars Zero Company, and Fuse Games' Star Wars: Galactic Racer—three more excellent, diverse games.

Battlefront 3 will add to the franchise's promising gaming future. A Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake, Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, and Star Wars Jedi 3 (currently without an official subtitle) are all still on the horizon. There are valid doubts surrounding EA's future output given the company's new ownership, but Battlefront 3 has felt like something of a white whale for decades at this point, though it's now bittersweet coming alongside so many layoffs and the closure of BioWare.

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TV Show(s) Star Wars: The Clone Wars, The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett, Star Wars: The Bad Batch Comic Star Wars: Revelations First Film Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope First TV Show Star Wars: The Mandalorian Cast Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiarmid, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Rosario Dawson, Pedro Pascal Created by George Lucas 0:00 / 0:00