The original beta for cancelled multiplayer Star Wars shooter First Assault popped up again in the wild this week, in the form of YouTube videos that showed the game being played online. Cancelled in 2013, First Assault was just gearing up for announcement, with a playable beta already in place. Then, a few years ago, a team of just two decided to attempt a resurrection. Originally, however, their plans were much bigger: they wanted to remake the game entirely in Unreal Engine 4.
"In late 2023, we found that Xenia Netplay [an emulator for playing Xbox 360 games online, providing they had LAN support] had reached a functional stage where the leaked Battlefront 3 build was able to be played in multiplayer," custom server manager Shaymin tells me. "However, there was no real commitment to working on First Assault due to a major obstacle: the main menu required the recreation of a profile management server."
