Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3 trailer confirms the return of a fan-favorite Clone Wars villain after 11 years

Star Wars: The Bad Batch
(Image credit: Disney)

A new trailer for Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3 is here, and it confirms the return of fan-favorite villain Asajj Ventress nearly 11 years after her final appearance in The Clone Wars.

The Bad Batch season 3, which is set to be the series' final season, will begin streaming via Disney+ on February 21 with a three episode premiere. The season will consist of 15 episodes in total, concluding on May 1. The series will once again focus on Clone Force 99, a group of former soldiers in the Republic army who make their own path as the Empire takes over the galaxy.

The new trailer, which you can see below, previews plenty of Clone Force 99's planet-hopping adventures, but it's the stinger at the end that'll catch the eyes of longtime Star Wars fans. Asajj Ventress appears at the end, wielding a yellow lightsaber and seeming ready to attack the show's protagonists.

Ventress was originally created for the 2003 2D animated Clone Wars series directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, and was later adapted into the 3D animated series which began in 2008. She quickly became a fan-favorite villain, eventually transforming to something of a hero before her final appearance in the season 5 finale of The Clone Wars. That was Ventress's last on-screen appearance, but she's shown up elsewhere in Star Wars canon - including the 2015 novel Dark Disciple, where she pretty definitively died.

"We love Asajj Ventress. She’s a character that we’ve been wanting to tell more stories about," supervising director and executive producer Brad Rau says on StarWars.com. He adds that "we don't want to spoil anything, but want fans to know that any new storytelling with Ventress will align with the events of Star Wars: Dark Disciple."

If you're still trying to figure out how to watch the Star Wars movies in order (release and chronological), we've got you covered. If you want to see all the best shows on Disney Plus, you know where to click.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

Read more
Star Wars Visions anime
First look at Star Wars anime Visions season 3 is a "psychedelic battle" exploring the "tormented psyche" of a stormtrooper
Ahsoka in episode 5
Ahsoka season 2 release date speculation, cast, story, and everything else you need to know about the Star Wars show
Andor season 2
First Andor season 2 trailer reveals major Star Wars Rogue One returns and announces a strange release schedule
Andor season 2
Andor season 2's trailer has reminded Star Wars fans exactly where the show is heading: "We're going to be losing a lot of people this season"
Andor
Andor season 2 release date, cast, trailer, and more news
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor in Andor season 2
Andor season 2 showrunner Tony Gilroy breaks silence on the weird release schedule: "It's a Disney decision"
Latest in Star Wars TV Shows
Star Wars Visions anime
First look at Star Wars anime Visions season 3 is a "psychedelic battle" exploring the "tormented psyche" of a stormtrooper
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor in Andor season 2
Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy says his Star Wars show is trying to be "more serious about this sh*t than anybody ever has been"
The Mandalorian and Boba Fett
George Lucas' unmade Star Wars show was so expensive and risky that it would have cost $40 million per episode and “blown up the whole Star Wars universe"
Diego Luna in Andor season 2
Andor season 2 showrunner Tony Gilroy calls Cassian “Star Wars Jesus” ahead of the show’s return on Disney Plus
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor in Andor season 2
Andor season 2 showrunner Tony Gilroy breaks silence on the weird release schedule: "It's a Disney decision"
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor in Andor season 2
Andor season 2 showrunner talks the much-anticipated Star Wars moment that we haven't seen on screen before: "It's a very significant part of our show"
Latest in News
Posing with a rifle in the Fallout 76 Ghoul update
Fallout 76's art director "had to fight really hard" so Bethesda would make the MMO's map bigger than Skyrim's
Minecraft movie image of Jack Black as steve
Don't expect Minecraft to go free-to-play anytime soon, as Mojang says "It doesn't really work with the way we built it"
Yasuke looking over the water to a shrine during sunset in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Assassin's Creed Shadows has an entire island stuffed with adorable kittens you need to check out, and it's based on an actual Japanese cat paradise
phase zero key art showing zombies in a hallway
Former Witcher 3 and Dying Light devs reveal their Resident Evil homage, complete with PS1-style fixed cameras
Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis System was only created because WB Games wanted something to combat Batman Arkham Asylum's second-hand sales, exec says
First-person screenshot from ASYLUM, showing the protagonist's hand holding up a notebook while walking through a dark corridor.
After 15 years and a $120,000 Kickstarter push, this cult horror dev has finally released a successor to their 2006 breakout game