"[There's] a very vocal audience that's clamoring for Battlefront III," said a source. "We were hoping to eventually give it to them."

But over the past few months, morale has been low at LucasArts. Due to the freeze on all hiring and game announcements, staff at the company had no idea whether their games would ever actually come out.

In January, a month after the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, Disney's Iger came out and said they would be taking a close look at the violence in their video games.

This was a red flag for the developers at LucasArts. Here they are, working on a first-person shooter and a violent action-adventure game, and Disney says they're re-evaluating the amount of violence in their games? Not a great sign.

"It was very clear that we were kind of the redheaded stepchild," said a source. "We kinda came along with the hot mom being the film properties."