Development History

On January 25 2016, Frontwire Studios began an attempt to produce an unofficial Battlefront game called Galaxy In Turmoil. The fan made game was in production using Unreal Engine 4 and was to be a 'revival' of the cancelled Star Wars Battlefront III by Free Radical Design. Early versions of the game contained assets from Free Radical Design, but later they became placeholders as the full game was planned to be released with new assets and music, but still with the Star Wars theme. On June 4 2016, Galaxy In Turmoil got a distribution deal through Valve and the game was planned to be released on Steam for free. This generated a lot of attention, including 30,000 fans and people from LucasFilm and Disney.

On June 22 2016, Frontwire Studios received a letter from LucasFilm asking to halt production of Galaxy In Turmoil with any Star Wars related content at once. A meeting was held a week later between LucasFilm executives and Frontwire Studios to discuss the project and to find some common ground to work with. During the meeting, LucasFIlm informed Frontwire Studios that they would have been open to the idea of negotiating a license to the studio to continue working on the game with the Star Wars IP, but they were unable to due to their contract with Electronic Arts (EA). LucasFilm had already spoken to EA about Galaxy In Turmoil and they expressed no desire in letting the project continue, most likely because it would take attention away from their Battlefront franchise. There was a proposal to have Galaxy In Turmoil behind EA's paywall, but that was rejected. Although Frontwire Studios may have fallen within Fair Use laws, legal conflict was avoided and the fan made Star Wars inspired project was canceled.

The Galaxy In Turmoil community was disappointed, if not outraged, by what had happened. Everyone thought that this would be the end of Galaxy In Turmoil, until it was announced that the game would be planned to be released as a brand new sci-fi game with no Star Wars content, but still with Battlefront III-inspired mechanics including space-to-ground battles.