I played a Cancelled Star Wars FPS that never released...

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away around 2012 2013 actually there was a brand new Star Wars firstperson shooter multiplayer game called First Assault that was ready to begin a technical test beta. Now you may be wondering, hm, that's weird. I've never heard of that game or played it. Well, that's because sadly it never released. But why? Well, cast your mind back. In October 2012, Disney acquired Lucasfilm and Lucas Arts for $4 billion. And with that, in the following year, came the cancellation of many projects in development at the time. Star Wars 1313, that looked incredible if you remember the trailer. And also this game you're seeing now, Star Wars First Assault, it was a casualty of that acquisition. So, what was Star Wars First Assault? And how the hell are you seeing gameplay of it here? Well, in terms of what the vision was, all we have to go off is what a very small amount of developers have come out and said about the project, plus some information scraped from the official website back in the day. This was a multiplayer focused game. Two teams, Rebel versus Empire, with 16 players in a match. There were different classes, blasters, grenades, some teamplay elements, abilities, and a big focus on objectives. It kind of feels like if Star Wars wanted to make an old school Call of Duty game. Apparently, the grand plan for this was to be released on the Xbox 360 arcade at a lower price point, as a test bed to see the reaction from fans, the sales figures, etc., and more importantly as a technology building exercise for a potential Star Wars Battlefront 3. And from what I've researched online, it looks like this could have been the springboard or foundation for that future title, if it wasn't cancelled, of course. We did end up getting new Battlefront games anyway from EA and DICE in 2015 and 2017. Both banging games that still hold up today in my opinion. Yes, they're a bit different to the originals, but I think they're incredibly fun and delivered on the Star Wars fantasy. So, how are people playing Star Wars First Assault in 2026? Well, 24 hours before the technical beta test was supposed to go live, everything was shut down and announcements were cancelled. But somehow that build of the game running on Unreal Engine found its way onto the internet. Now, it's been playable on emulators for some years now in a rudimentary state, but recently modders and fans were able to get it working on the Zenya emulation software and get this enabled online multiplayer. Yes, you heard me right. If you're on PC, you can play this game today. You'll need a controller as it doesn't natively support mouse and keyboard, but if there's people searching for a match at the same time that you are, it will fill the lobby. it will start the game and you can actually play a full round of this whether you're attacking or defending. Incredible. There's only one map right now, Tatooine. It's a bit laggy at times and yeah, there's some textures and animations that aren't working 100%, but the bones are there and with this being a technical test build. I think it's in pretty decent shape. If you're on the Empire team, the match starts, you're dropped in and you're tasked with attacking three objectives in a row. If you're on the Rebel side, you've got to defend these objectives. The attackers are limited by time, too. And if they don't capture an objective before the time runs out, game over. The rebels win. However, if the stormtroopers break through and capture that final objective, they win and then are tasked with stopping the rebels escaping on a transport ship. And if you die in this phase, you don't respawn. It's very similar to how Titanfall did it further on in the future. The gameplay is fast-paced, too, but not as fast as something like Call of Duty. I'd put the combat pacing at a similar speed closer to Battlefield 3, which released the year before in 2011. The gunplay is pretty straightforward, arcadey, but it appears to be projectilebased, and some of these actually have a bit of recoil on them, so you can't just full auto enemies that are at medium to long ranges. The sniper rifles, though, I think they are hit scan and very dangerous. You can even go prone to if you want, which I didn't really expect, but that's possible. There are no Jedi or Sith here, no lightsabers. It's just about the ground wall, the troopers and the grunts in the streets scrapping and getting down and dirty. And as I mentioned, you can choose from a few different loadouts. Various primary weapons, bowcasters, shotguns, grenades. There's abilities, too, like shields, which you can pop for a limited time that will protect you from any blaster fire, and repulsors that will blow away any enemy grenades that might be near you. You can heal teammates too with the back injection. So, there are teamplay elements here. And if you score enough points on your own, you'll get access to a kill streak, so to speak, like the orbital strike here. You get your goggles out, pick a location, and it drops a bomb pretty quickly, and that's great for clearing any open objectives. Or you can get auto turrets that will blast opponents for you. These are pretty deadly. The time to kill isn't as quick as something like Call of Duty either, so you've got time to react if you're being surprised and shot in the back. The map in the technical test is set on Tatooine. If you hadn't worked it out already, this is an iconic planet in the franchise. It had to be there. And there were supposedly four maps set on this planet planned for the game. This one here has multiple levels of elevation and cover points cleverly designed to help push or defend the objectives. and you'll find places that you can prone to hide in and flanking routes underneath through dark sewers and tunnels that will enable sneaky ambushes from behind. Overall, it's good, simple arcade fun, and if you're a Star Wars fan, playing this sort of game definitely has strong appeal. Yes, by today's standards, perhaps it would be too simple to capture any long-term attention, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't excited to play this. And when playing, despite the field of view, frame rate, and lag, I had an hour and a half of fun. And imagine a scenario where this kind of Star Wars game can be delivered at modern standards with incredible graphics, movement, gunplay, progression, loads of blasters to choose from, abilities, killstreaks, 16 maps in the game, some of them a bit bigger with grand cinematic objectives, a bit of narrative there, all grounded in this arena style combat. The idea of that sounds very tantalizing to me. Hypothetically, I think there is a game like this that could exist today and be successful. I feel it's different enough from Battlefront because it's a much smaller scale with fewer players, no vehicles, no heroes, villains, etc. But perhaps because of that, this could offer that jump in jump out feeling every now and again. It isn't something as grandiose or large scale as Battlefront, but perhaps sometimes Star Wars doesn't need to be that, and it could be a simple arena shooter. Boots on the ground, as they say, exploring the grim battles between the Rebellion and the Empire on the streets. I think it's just cool, though, that the hard work the developers put into this wasn't completely wasted. But if you look online, you can find them talking about this, explaining just how close they were to some kind of announcement or release. The concept art was incredible. Lots of different locations, battles. I managed to find an art station page 2 from Wying Lee, a senior environment artist on the game, showing an interior on one of the four Tatooine maps that they worked on. This is a real-time screenshot captured in Unreal Engine 3. So, the people that worked on this game were proud of it. And the soundtrack, too. Oh man. Just listen to this for a few seconds, which I assume is the main theme as it plays when you load the game. When I heard that for the first time that the game booted up, I was just smiling from ear to ear and it brought a tear to my eye. I was like, "Let's freaking go. Get me on the map with an E11 via a drop ship right now. It's so nostalgic yet fresh, capturing both sides of the conflict with triumphant rebel and Empire themes intertwined. It's perfect for this type of game. The full main theme is up on YouTube if you want to listen to it as well as some other tracks. Supposedly recorded at the London Symphony Orchestra, and I wasn't surprised at all to learn that it was composed by Wilbert Roger II. He made the Hell Divers 2 and COD World War II soundtracks which were just as impressive and I'm glad that people got to hear some of the First Assault soundtrack in the end. It's amazing. I can't say enough about it. Now, if you want to play this, there is a Discord set up. You'll have to download a couple things. There's a guide there how to install it. And on the Discord, they do show you when others are matchmaking, so you can get a full lobby. But remember, there are bugs, lag. It's not perfect. This was a technical test build. There's only one map, but perhaps you can get a taste if you want to and see what this could have been. Maybe in the future we'll have another Star Wars game like this. Who knows? But with that said, that's all for today, folks. Thank you for watching and do let me know your thoughts down in the comments below. Drop me a like if you enjoyed the video, a dislike if you didn't, subscribe if you're new here, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.