Report: Fans set to revive BattleForge with EA's blessing

The fan community for the discontinued game BattleForge has reportedly received the green light from EA to release an unofficial, fan revival of the free-to-play RTS. According to a post from the community manager of the fan initiative behind the revival effort, EA will allow them to restore BattleForge to its original glory, with a few caveats. 

It's worth noting that there has yet to be any confirmation of this on EA's side of things, but, if everything checks out the story of BattleForge’s fan revival could have a happier ending than the cease and desist-filled stories other fan-projects tend to tell.

The revival effort, known as Skylords Reborn, has been working to restore the game unofficially for a few years now but going forward the development team will be working with Ardent Peak to bring the free-to-play title back as a fully operational game, sans any ‘pay to play’ mechanics.

As part of the agreement, the team is able to set up a new server for BattleForge, called Skylords Reborn, and restore the game to its former glory, as it was when shut down by EA in 2013. 

The fans rebooting the game will not be able to release any paid DLC or paid updates for the game, but will however be able to “commercialize the game to the extent that [they] are allowed to gain money for the project.” The team is able to create additional content for the game as well, but cannot create full new versions or new game editions without violating their agreement. 

Additionally, they’re required to strip any EA branding from the project, but have otherwise “been given permission to alter the BattleForge client to [their] desires.”

The full list of stipulations the Skylords Reborn team has to adhere to can be found on the team’s website, along with a rough development calendar of the progress they’ve made reverse engineering BattleForge so far.