Star Wars fans heartbroken to find out just how close Battlefront 3 was to releasing before it was canceled

Star Wars Battlefront 3 was so close to being finished before it was cancelled, and fans who are just learning this news have gone into mourning. 

The story starts with a tweet from former Star Wars Battlefront 3 developer - and current Naughty Dog designer - Michael Barclay, who took part in the trend currently going around game developer Twitter which sees devs share "one that got away" project wise. 

"I feel like it’s been long enough now to come out and say Star Wars Battlefront 3 was [gonna] be legit incredible and the fact it got cancelled 2 yards from the finish line is an absolute crime," Barclay said in a quote retweet, "gamers don’t know what they were robbed of." It's this simple sentence that sent Star Wars Battlefront fans into a frenzy as they shared their heartbreak for the Star Wars game that could have been.

Shortly after this, IGN picked up the story causing the news to spread even further, and even more Star Wars fans to be devastated at the fact we were so close to a third Battlefront game. Several fans shared the story on Twitter with varying levels of disappointment: "This one hurts," one fan simply wrote. "Star Wars games have had some of cruelest cancellations in the history of the gaming industry," another lamented. 

Star Wars Battlefront 3 was in development with Timesplitters studio Free Radical from around 2006 - 2008 before it was canceled by LucasArts. There's been a lot of back and forth between the developers that once worked on the game, with Free Radical co-founder Steve Ellis claiming that the game was "99% done" back in 2012 (via GameSpot), shortly followed by a quote from a former LucasArts employee calling it "bullsh*t" at the time - "A generous estimate would be 75 percent of a mediocre game."

Need something to fill that Battlefront 3-shaped hole in your heart now? Take a look at our list of upcoming Star Wars games for something else to look forward to.