Frontwire Studios, the indie developer behind the Star Wars Battlefront fan game, Star Wars: Galaxy in Turmoil, have been told by Lucasfilm to cease production in its current guise as a Star Wars game.
The news comes relatively soon after Frontwire Studios announced a deal with Steam over the distribution rights to the game, and almost 2 months after stating that the game was legally sound after technically being classed as a parody and educational, according to this Gamasutra article.
“Due to the nature of the campaign we are developing, we can be classed as a parody. We’re re-imagining a lot of what Star Wars is as well by creating everything from the ground up….In addition, we’re actually using this as a tool for educational purposes.”
But that now seems to be well wide of the mark after Frontwire Games released a statement on their official website explaining a recent interaction between themselves and Lucasfilm. The main jist of which appears to be the deal in place between EA and Lucasfilm over the rights to any and all Star Wars games. President of Frontwire Studios, Tony Romanelli (any relation Tom??)
“[Lucasfilm and EA’s] main concern was due to the possibility of Galaxy in Turmoil taking away attention from their Battlefront franchise,
“I tried to pitch the idea about putting Galaxy in Turmoil behind EA’s paywall but was told that EA had previously rejected that proposition as well.
“Due to their exclusive contract with EA, Lucasfilm was contractually obligated to deny our request for the use of the Star Wars IP for Galaxy in Turmoil based on EA’s decision.”
They do however plan to press on with a Galaxy in Turmoil game, but with no links whatsoever to that Galaxy far, far away.
“Going forward, Frontwire Studios will be pivoting away from Star Wars and embarking on a mission to create a new, original game in a never before seen universe. Our game will still have massive 64-player battles, ground-to-space combat, destructible capital ships, and a full single-player campaign. We will also still be releasing Galaxy in Turmoil on Steam as planned and it will remain a free game. No, we will not be adding any micro transactions or pay-to-win content. When Frontwire Studios makes a promise, we keep it. With that being said, we will still create the game you have all wanted and deserved, even if it turns out to not be Star Wars-related.”
The game will still be crowdfunded, but this will not commence until they are fully prepared with a decent sized playable demo.
“We do have plans to crowdfund GiT in the future. However, we have decided that we will not crowdfund until we can release a fully playable demo consisting of a single player mission & at least two multiplayer maps with a single gamemode.”
Also included in the statement were a number of development and concept art images (even if they are small) which gives a little bit more of a look at how the game is continuing to shape up.
Were you looking forward to this as a Star Wars game? What do you think of the IP change? Let us know in the comments below or in the RGM Forums.
