Years ago, LucasArts was making a Star Wars FPS called Star Wars: First Assault. It was never released, but now the game is playable thanks to fans who found a way to get the game’s closed technical beta working online. People are playing it and posting footage, including popular streamer jackfrags. He posted 10 minutes of gameplay footage from the game and showed off its mechanics.
The game looks pretty polished, and according to developer Patrick Wren, the game was only “months away” from releasing before it was canceled.
Commenting on the newly released footage, Wren said, “It has been wild seeing people play a game I worked on over 10 years ago. It’s been amazing and sad at the same time. But overall, I am grateful people at least get to play a slice of what could have been.”
It has never been explained why First Assault and another Star Wars game, Star Wars 1313, were never released. But reports said these games were put on hold after Disney bought the Star Wars brand in 2012.
After Disney bought Star Wars, it signed a multi-year, exclusive deal with EA that would eventually lead to the releases of Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefront II, which combined to sell more than 33 million copies. EA’s mobile game Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes was a big hit, too, making over $1 billion by itself. The EA-published Star Wars Jedi games have been successful as well, and a third game is now coming from Respawn. EA sold more than 52 million Star Wars games.
EA no longer holds the exclusive licenses for console and PC Star Wars games, however, as Disney is now granting licenses to numerous other companies. Quantic Dream, for example, is making Star Wars: Eclipse, while Mass Effect veteran Casey Hudson is developing Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic. Check out the gallery below to see more upcoming Star Wars games.