Last October, a leaked image revealed that a game called Star Wars: First Assault is headed to Xbox Live Arcade . Now, a new rumor suggests that game may actually be a "predecessor" to Star Wars: Battlefront III.

According to Kotaku , if First Assault is released and sells well, there’s a possibility that Battlefront III could be right behind it. Allegedly, developer LucasArts began work on First Assault with plans of using the code from the smaller shooter as a base for Battlefront III.The report suggests that First Assault "supports up to 16 players—one eight-person team of rebels and one eight-person team of Stormtroopers—as they face off on Star Wars worlds like Bespin and Tatooine." It features no vehicles (though vehicles have supposedly already been prototyped for Battlefront III) and no Jedi. The game is "a downloadable 'predecessor' to Battlefront III—part of the studio's strategy to show that there's a market for Star Wars shooters running on the Unreal Engine."

Images via Kotaku

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First Assault was reportedly slated to go into closed beta in September and then be released October 1st, but with the Disney buyout of LucasArts , everything seems up in the air. There’s a chance that we may never see First Assault at all.Last week, a rumor suggested that the other highly anticipated Star Wars title, Star Wars 1313, could be "on hold." We've reached out to LucasArts for comment and will update this story with any additional info we receive.

Taylor Cocke is a Bay Area based freelance games writer. Listen to him spout about bands you don't care about by following Taylor on Twitter @taylorcocke