The Unofficial Crytek UK Blog

Below are some more screenshots for Battlefront III. There are also some animations which includes Battlefront III. You can see them here. Also included are some early TimeSplitters : Future Perfect animations and scenes.

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Link

Upgrading to Wordpress 2.9 has broken many things. Luckily I have fixed them!  I apologise for the time yesterday when the blog was not working at all and for when the forums were not functioning. Everything is now in working order.

This will not happen again because I will not upgrade unless I am 100% certain nothing will break, in the future.

The Spike Video Game Awards announced a star wars game. It wasn’t Battlefront III however, it was The Force unleashed II. This destroys what was the last hope for many people wanting Battlefront III. However with an ex-employee who states Battlefront III is still being developed, what you want to believe is up to you.

Since the employee went on to work with Star Wars Empire at War: Forces of Corruption which came out in 2006, as long as the actor is not pulling a bad joke, he would have worked on Battlefront III at a very early stage. It makes little sense,

The Original Title (he worked on) was Battlefront 3 but it evolved into Star Wars Empire at War: Forces of Corruption

This quote refers to what the employee was working on, otherwise it doesn’t add up at all.

However Battlefront 3 is also in development It was by far the Most Fun and Coolest Casting I ever worked on.

That quote is the part where he states Battlefront III is still being developed.

With thanks to the website battlefront3.net, news has come through that what was Battlefront III may still be in the works but under a different title. An employee for the game has stated,

The Original Title was Battlefront 3 but it evolved into Star Wars Empire at War: Forces of Corruption

However Battlefront 3 is also in development It was by far the Most Fun and Coolest Casting I ever worked on.

Tomorrow a Star Wars game is set to be announced. This could be it. LucasArts would have wanted to remove the Battlefront branding because of the bad image it has recently given them. The game may resemble what Battlefront III was going to be but it may not live up to what we expected from the alpha stage trailer.

We will find out soon enough.

A person known as Red7 StandingBy has emailed a former Free radical Design Employee who worked on Battlefront III, who wishes to remain anonymous. In the reply the employee disclosed some information relating to Battlefront III. I have confirmed this information with my own email to the employee.

The whole idea with BF3 was that is was going to have a storyline, following two clone brothers that was cloned from a Jedi. The game also had a vertical battlefield, so you could fight on the ground, jump into a x wing and fly up to a star destroyer, firing ion cannons from space to ground or from ground to space, all this without any loading times.

It sounds good but there is terrible news.

Sad to say that about 6-8 months from completing the game, Lucasarts canned it, I don’t know all the details about what happened but it got canceled and that was the life of Free Radical, we couldn’t get a publisher in time for Timesplitters 4 so the directors where forced to make 80 % of the company redundant. Then later on they got bought up by Crytek and are now developing some AAA titel. I was one of the guys that was made redundant so I am not working at Crytek anymore but at a different games company.

The status of BF3, well the BF3 I was working on will never get released, however I believe that Battlefront being one of the major titles for Lucasart, you will no doubt see a battlefront title at some point, what format, what type of game it will be, that I cant answer, because I dont know.

It is conceivable, the employee may have been misinformed or may have misunderstood the status of Battlefront III. The game may not have been completely cancelled but could have been moved to another company. I have contacted the employee again and he believes it is very likely the game has been cancelled but he has no way of knowing for sure.

LucasArts forced Free Radical Design into administration and because of them, TimeSplitters 4 is now in danger.

How can you help? Show your commitment and support to TimeSplitters 4 by visiting this link!

Note: The quotes are directly taken from email messages and the grammar and spelling errors have not been fixed.

Here are some brilliant renders for Battlefront III. The frame rates aren’t much to be desired but I would put that down to early versions or development tools which slow the game down. You can see however that the levels simply look fantastic.

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These renders come from the following artist websites,

http://sabart.blogspot.com/2008/11/golden-elf-concept.html
http://www.alistair-burn.co.uk/cantina.html
http://jonasmattsson.net/

Some images have been removed under request.

Here are some more renders for battlefront III and IV taken from this website – Working Illusions

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Many thanks to the person who goes by Rgleirber who gave me a link to the website.

More amazing visuals shown.

CryEngine 3 has been released to game developers as stated on Crytek’s website.

CryEngine 3 will offer “scalable graphics and computation” which makes it “next-gen ready”. It includes a feature called Live Create™ which allows developers to make games for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms at the same time, as shown with previous videos.

CEO of Crytek, Cevat Yerli says,

With CryENGINE 3 we are releasing the best development solution available today and tomorrow. With its scalable graphics and computation it is next-gen ready and with new features like CryENGINE 3 Live Create the best choice for game developers and companies developing serious games applications alike. It is the only game engine solution that enables real-time development and can ensure teams are able to maximise their own creativity, save budget and create greater gaming experiences.

Carl Jones, who is the director of business development for CryEngine, adds,

We’re delighted to launch CryENGINE 3 and we look forward to seeing what developers achieve with our all-new technology. CryENGINE 3 isn’t just about providing our trademark highest-quality graphics and our out of the box AI and physics for the first time on consoles – it also delivers real benefits to all disciplines in games development.  Programmers will create awesome new effects and gameplay; art, design and audio teams can play as they create with the fastest, entirely real-time WYSIWYP pipeline ever, materially reducing development time and risk – even producers, project managers and suits will love CryENGINE 3!  Of course, our international team of more than 20 dedicated support staff are available right now to help our licensees make the most of CryENGINE 3; at their studio or at one of our support centres around the world.

Crytek UK is creating an original FPS game. Karl Hilton explains that the studio will continue to focus upon both Multiplayer and single player quality in this game. Such quality that could be found in the TimeSplitters games. This could possibly be bad news for the future of TimeSplitters 4 as new ideas are being put forward while TimeSplitters 4 is being left behind. To Develop, Karl Hilton has said,

We are currently concepting up an original IP that we hope will become a defining game series for the UK studio, however, in reality, the opportunity to make any kind of original FPS genre game where we get to focus on the quality of both the multiplayer and single player experience is what drives people at the studio. We have a strong history of creativity here, and we want to take that forward with Crytek and the CryENGINE 3.

Karl Hilton is also very keen on supporting video game education,

We are particularly keen to get involved with education in the UK and build up good communications and knowledge exchange with universities and colleges

It is expected that CryEngine 3 will be given out free to UK universities. Talking to GamesIndustry.biz, Karl Hilton has said,

Universities are looking to foster creativity and send people out into the industry who have lots of ideas, but it’s also about that practical hands-on training so that they know what the limitations are. It’s very easy for students to come out of the academic world and not have a grasp on the realities of making a video-game. The more we can get involved with them and give them feedback and access to the tools involved, the more accurate the course will become in training people up.

We’re talking with uni’s now about how they can integrate it into their courses and going down to see them to do a one day tutorial to get them up and running on that as quickly as possible. It’ll be a learning experience for both of us to see how they integrate it.

I think we’re very forward looking, Students and universities aren’t mind readers, they won’t know exactly what we do and how we do it unless they get in contact with people who actually work in the industry.

If you wish to show interest in the development of TimeSplitters 4 please read this post. The registration process has now become even easier yet more spam preventative with a simple anti-spam question rather than an image. You do not require validation, including by email, for registrations. You can start posting immediately.