British modder iamashaymin (who asked not to disclose their real name for privacy reasons) doesn’t remember the first time they played Star Wars Battlefront. But the 2004 video game, in which you fight in intergalactic battles as Star Wars main characters and rank-and-file soldiers, left a permanent mark on them as a child.
Over the next 20 years, they became one of the top creators making Star Wars Battlefront ‘mods’ — aka, fan-made alterations of games that others can download. They continuously added new content, fixed bugs, and tweaked maps years after the developers stopped supporting the game.
But when the trailer for Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection — a 2024 remaster of the title developed by studio Aspyr — came out, the modder noticed something odd.
The game’s original Xbox downloadable content (DLC), which included two new characters and multiple maps, wasn’t made entirely from the ground up. Instead, it seemed like some details were eerily similar to a mod iamashaymin made in 2020.
In the trailer, one DLC character, the Sith warrior Asajj Ventress, had what appeared to be custom lightsaber hilts created by the modder.
“I realized with the trailer immediately that it was my work,” iamashaymin told Passionfruit.
In a statement to IGN, the game’s publisher, Aspyr, seemingly acknowledged the designs were similar. It said that it “mistakenly included content” in the trailer “that is not in the product.” The company insisted the final game “does not include any code or content” from “uncredited sources.” (Aspyr did not respond to Passionfruit’s request for comment via email.)
But the modder believes the game did include their designs in the shipped product. They said that when they first got the remaster on PC on March 13, they “did not see anything.” So they thought it just “wasn’t there.”
But the next day, a Reddit user posted PlayStation 5 footage of Ventress with new animations. Iamashaymin knew then that Ventress, as well as a modded version of Jedi Kit Fisto, was “still in use completely.” They also received the files for the game on Nintendo Switch, where they say their heroes were also in use.
On X, iamashaymin posted the evidence of their mod in the new game. Their thread pulled in over two million views from shocked social media users.
“This trainwreck goes deeper,” wrote one user. “It’s essentially stealing at this point,” wrote another. …
