R3-B57 was an R3-series astromech droid that operated during the Galactic Civil War. After the Battle of Yavin, R3-B57 served Jabba the Hutt's criminal empire on Tatooine under Jabba's sadistic EV-series supervisor droid EV-9D9. In 1 ABY, R3-B57 and three other droids, BD-34, RA-316 and LIN-34, escaped Jabba's Palace and took refuge within the Darklighter cache. EV-9D9 thus hired a spacer to track down the droids to the cave. According to EV-9D9's punitive instructions, the spacer planted pain bolts to the droids before destroying them. In the meantime, Jabba's enemies of the Valarian Syndicate assigned a group of M12-L Kimogila heavy fighters to exfiltrate R3-B57 out of the system but the ships were destroyed by Jabba's pilots in the Tatooine system.
R3-B57 appeared as a non-player character in the video game Star Wars Galaxies, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game developed by Sony and published by LucasArts, prior to its closure on December 15, 2011. R3-B57 was added to the game as part of the "Legacy Quest" with the release of the "Publish 25," a.k.a. the "New Game Enhancements," on November 15, 2005.