Don’t Expect Star Wars: Battlefront 3 Any Time Soon, Former DICE Developer Says, Despite Player Surge

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 might be enjoying a player resurgence, but fans shouldn’t expect a Battlefront 3 announcement anytime soon.

That’s according to a former employee who worked on Star Wars: Battlefront 2’s live operations at developer DICE, who has been responding to player questions on reddit.

Star Wars: Battlefront 2, originally released in 2017, has seen its player count rise rapidly since the start of this month, fuelled by the franchise’s annual May 4 celebrations and the critically-acclaimed return of Star Wars TV series Andor.

The game’s renewed popularity has fans clamouring for more — and to be fair, after eight years, you might expect publisher EA to have something up its sleeve. But, according to former live producer of BF2, Mats Holm, that is unlikely to be the case.

“I don’t expect Battlefront 3 to be announced at the end of this rally,” Holm wrote, referring to the recent uptick in Battlefield 2 player numbers. “But overall, yeah, I think there are people who are talking about it.”

According to Holm, the biggest issue holding up a new game is that the majority of the Battlefront 2 team are no longer at DICE.

“We spread all over,” Holm revealed. “A few went to Ubisoft, some went independent, some to King, Avalanche, Star Stables, Paradox, Starbreeze, Mojang to name a few. Some left Stockholm to join game companies abroad as well.

“Embark has a lot of the people who made base game, but the people who made the live game did not leave in a pack. We all slowly drifted after being put on Battlefield.”

Asked whether DICE could still make a new Battlefront game without its previous team members, Holm admitted he was “sceptical.”

“The live team ended up approaching the game very differently than the original devs,” Holm wrote, referring to how the team who continued making Battlefront 2 content post-launch turned around the game’s fortunes following a shaky start. “If they went about it the same way as before, they will not get how we brought the game back from the abyss.

“So, if their goal was ‘let’s learn everything from their work,’ perhaps. If they are ‘new game, Battlefield but in Star Wars outfits’ it won’t turn out well.”

As of now, only “about three people” are left from Battlefront 2’s live team at DICE, the developer continued. There’s also the issue that, for now DICE is busy throwing all of its development weight into getting its big new Battlefield game finished.

Still, in a perfect universe, the developer said they would like to see the franchise continue — although they wouldn’t make Battlefield 3 next.

“Hear me out — no Battlefront 3 right now, but Battlefront 2 Remaster for whatever future console is arriving in 2027-28,” the developer suggested. “Dev time is around 2-3 years. There is a laundry list of improvements that this game could get in my opinion, and getting it updated was always on our wishlist.

“Once that is a success, then start work on 3. You have a team familiar with engine, assets and really could kick off developing a 3 within a much shorter time span, and working on feedback from a fresh Battlefront 2 audience base. This would be a 5-6 year plan, but it’s far more likely to be a success.”

Improvements for Battlefront 2 would include cross-play, day/night cycles and dynamic weather for all planets, a 1-vs-1 mode and more, the developer concluded.

“List is endless, but [these options] were off the table as we were in live, not [original game] production,” the developer concluded.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social