After releasing in 2017 to a wave of negativity due to its loot box-focused gameplay, Star Wars Battlefront 2’s popularity has been steadily rising thanks to a steady string of patches and content updates – such as the recent Clone Wars season, which has added several new hero characters, modes, and maps to the game.

This level of support is unusual for EA and DICE, who traditionally – with most Battlefield games and Star Wars Battlefront 1 – would support a game with a Season Pass, DLC, expansions and patches for a little while. After that, though, they would usually be prepping for a sequel – but in Battlefront’s case that’s not happening, and Star Wars Battlefront 3 is still a long way off… if it happens at all.

We spoke to Dennis Brännvall, design director on Battlefront 2, at Gamescom, and he told us the surprising truth – Battlefront 3 is not part of the deal. “Sequels are probably still viable otherwise people wouldn’t be doing them,” he explains, “but it’s not the same hunger as it used to be.”

“We were so used to the chain of sequels, where we do a sequel then we do a season pass for a year then move onto the next game. I think the industry has changed on that… before it was very transactional and we made the game and we signed up for 4 DLCs and then that’s it. So then you focus on getting value to players out of what they paid for and if there was a system that wasn’t working then you put a pin in that and say we will fix it in the sequel.” Brännvall then confirmed, “this time around we’re not doing it that way.”

“You’ll see us really overhauling bits that aren’t working and not be afraid of changing things, which means that your community is happier because it’s a better game overall.” He then gives an example of the game’s previous “spawnwave” spawning system, which the team removed after player feedback suggested a more team-focused one would be better – so now DICE has made it so players can spawn on teammates.

“We’re not afraid of making those changes, whereas if we’d been working on the sequel and it was just some paid season pass, that would’ve been ‘ok we’re not doing that for the sequel but we’re not gonna change it’.”