For a franchise whose movie saga boasts about being a trilogy of trilogies, Star Wars: Battlefront 3 has joined the steadily growing list of third Star Wars video game entries that have never gone past their development, concept, or pitching stage. According to a rumor, DICE proposed a potential sequel to Star Wars: Battlefront 2 to Electronic Arts, but the idea was shot down due to the licensing costs to make the game.

The crux of the matter was simple: to make the same amount of money as any other game, the Star Wars one would need to sell 20% more copies to offset the licensing costs, which apparently proved too steep for the game publisher to greenlight the project. This is according to leaker Tom Henderson, who has accurately leaked DICE news in the past, though it’s always best to take things like this with a grain of salt.

The new Star Wars: Battlefront game franchise started out rather tumultously, with a first entry that fans of the original Battlefront games felt – while promising – didn’t quite live up to its potential, followed by a sequel whose launch was widely panned for its predatory microtransactions platform. Despite this, Star Wars: Battlefront 2 slowly yet steadily shed the negative reputation it earned during its fledgling months and became a refined, complete, and fun shooter experience.

Hoping for a sequel that expanded on the ideas developed throughout the second game’s post-launch support was not a lofty – nor an unjustified – dream for DICE or Star Wars fans to have, especially after updates on Star Wars: Battlefront 2 were halted. However, according to the rumor, those dreams have been put on hold indefinitely by the publisher.

Instead of working on the next Star Wars: Battlefront game, DICE developers have reportedly instead been reassigned to work on a new Battlefield entry. DICE’s new game seems to be in early development, having just passed its conceptual stage, but not much is known about the project beyond that.

Despite allegedly cancelling, or rather, rejecting the Star Wars: Battlefront 3 pitch, there are at least two Star Wars games being developed under Electronic Arts, with both apparently having a single-player, story-driven focus – not unlike the critically acclaimed Jedi: Fallen Order, made by Respawn Entertainment, whose sequel is one of those games.

Star Wars: Battlefront 3 is reportedly not in development.