Pour one out for Star Wars: Battlefront IV concept art

Two of my favorite things about videogames are, oddly enough, concept art and unreleased or cancelled games. I like thinking about how games get made, and it’s fascinating to sort through the ones that failed along the way. Actually playing unreleased gems is secondary — they’re more interesting to think about and look at. To that end, Unseen64 has some concept art for Star Wars Battlefront IV which was, at one point, in development Chez Crytek UK (formerly Free Radical Design).

Before its demise (and subsequent assimilation by Crytek), Free Radical was supposed to have been working on Battlefront III, but LucasArts reclaimed the rights when the company went into administration and it’s currently somewhere in development hell. The fact that concept art was being created for Battlefront IV during development for III suggests, to me, that Free Radical’s economic troubles came as something of a surprise. 

While we may never see Star Wars: Battlefront IV (or, hell, even Battlefront III), feel free to feast your eyes on some art from what would have been Dagobah and Genosis, as well as a few vehicles. Here’s hoping that, at the very least, Timesplitters 4 makes it out of this mess alive.

[Via GameSetWatch]