14 DAY TRIAL // Note: The image has been removed due to a legal complaint submitted by Lucasfilm .
Free Radical was just the last of the well known studios forced to close down or to severely restrict their activity as the 2008 world wide financial crisis hit the videogaming industry. Most of its employees, who were thought to number more than 180, were let go on December 17. The problems of Free Radical were mainly linked to the commercial flop its latest PlayStation 3 shooter, Haze, was, released earlier in 2008.
But Free Radical had long been rumored to be working on a more high profile game together with LucasArts. Most observers thought that the mystery project quietly announced way back in 2006 was Star Wars Battlefront III and now we sort of have a confirmation of that.
The personal site of one 3D artist, Mister Richard J. Smith, who is saying he is still employed by Free Radical, was host to some screeenshots showing characters from the game. Surely, after the images went up and the fans could see them, they were taken down. A German site, called Swbf3.de, managed to host some of them.
The images seem to be genuine, bearing a Star Wars Battlefront III logo and the signature of the artist. Fans will recognize Han Solo, Emperor Palpatine, his red robbed Imperial Guards and a rendition of a rebel soldier. All the images are dated 2007.
It's unclear what the current fate of Star Wars Battlefront III is. There is speculation that after Free Radical went down, development duties on the game have been taken over by Rebellion Software, which has worked on the PlayStation Portable spin off of the franchise, called Renegade Squadron. Pandemic, which has just wrapped up The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, has also worked on Battlefront, but has recently been bought by Electronic Arts.