Everything we know about the next big Star Wars game.
Things are pretty great for Star Wars fans at the moment: not only are new films coming on the regular, according to EA’s Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen there are going to be a handful of games from various studios too.
The next exciting title in the Star Wars franchise is, of course, EA Dice’s Battlefront 2, the sequel to the franchise reboot first released in 2015.
When it was first released, Star Wars Battlefront received a mixed reception with some praising how it captured the Star Wars atmosphere perfectly with its excellent cinematic visuals while others bemoaned its repetitive combat and limited depth and content.
In spite of criticisms, the game still sold over 14 million copies and counting. With a sequel on the way, though, EA has the chance to learn from the first release and create something bigger and better.
If these words from EA CFO Blake Jorgensen are anything to go by, that’s exactly what we’ re going to get: “If there was criticism, they just wanted more. So we’re taking that criticism to heart as we build the next game and trying to address any of the issues that they had.”
And address it they have.
The Star Wars Battlefront 2 trailer has been a story in and of itself. First we saw leaked version before the trailer was originally set to launch before it was pulled down much to our chagrin. But that all changed on April 15 when we got the official trailer during a panel at Star Wars Celebration in Orlando.
The trailer gives fans a glimpse of the game’s single-player campaign which it appears will revolve around an “untold soldier’s story” in the Empire. As well as this single-player campaign that appears to be set in the period following the Empire’s defeat at Endor, there’ll also be a multiplayer mode of the game which will span “across all eras.”
This means we’ll see locations and characters from the series’ original trilogy as well as the prequels and new films. The trailer gives us a look at characters like Rey, Kylo Ren, Yoda and Darth Maul across a variety of locations. It also looks like there will indeed be exciting space battles involved.
A new two minute feature called The Story of an Imperial Soldier has been released which gives more of an insight into the game’s single player campaign and its protagonist.
In the video game director, Mark Thompson, and Lucasfilm creative exec, Steve Blank, discuss Iden Versio and more about the game’s imperial-focused story.
The game’s creators say they really wanted to get into the head of an imperial soldier through Iden Versio. As commander of the elite Inferno Squad with an admiral father, Iden’s belief in the good of the Empire runs in her blood.
Apparently the imperial army won’t be a bunch of brainwashed soldiers and conscripts; it’ll be a complex look at how people may want to fight for Palpatine. We imagine it’d be hard to angle something called the Death Star positively, but we’re more than willing to see an attempt to humanise the Empire.
Turns out, November and December are going to be great months for Star Wars fans. Star Wars Battlefront 2 will see a worldwide release on November 17 2017, followed shortly by the theatrical release of Star Wars Episode 8 The Last Jedi one month later on December 15.
What this means is that the game will be out slightly ahead of the movie – and thus has the potential to give us a brief look at new locations and new ships from the upcoming film.
That being said, those who pre-order the game will have access to two new skins – Episode 8 variations of Kylo Ren and Rey – as well as two new ships – the Episode 8 variation of the Millennium Falcon and a yet undisclosed ship from the new movie.
Thanks to the Star Wars Celebration panel, we now have expert insight into what we can expect when the game comes out. There are two important new additions here: a story mode and space battles.
Let’s start first by looking at the game’s new single-player mode.
In it, you’ll play as Iden Versio, a member of the Imperial Forces elite ops unit called Inferno Squad, a combination of expert Tie Pilots and covert commandos. During the trailer for the game we watch Iden witness the destruction of the second Death Star above the moon of Endor. Without direct missions from the now-deceased Emperor, Iden leads her squad on a mission of revenge to try and quell the Rebellion.
To that end, Battlefront II will occupy the time between the sixth film of the franchise, Return of the Jedi, and the seventh film, The Force Awakens.
After the battle on Endor, players will travel to Iden’s homeworld, a planet that has been under Imperial control for the entirety of her life. Instead of an martial law-loving Imperial city that we’ve seen in the past, however, Ida’s homeworld has come to embrace and love the Empire. This love hits home the theme that the single-player campaign is going for, which is that yes, the Rebellion had heroes, but so did the Empire.
In a recent interview with Eurogamer single player game director Mark Thompson and Criterion’s Matt Webster revealed that the single player campaign will be “a continuous story with a beginning a middle and an end” rather than separate missions and war stories like Battlefield 1.
Players will follow Iden for 30 years, from the end of Jedi up to the Force Awakens at Starkiller base, though there will be moments in the story where the player will switch sides and play “from the perspective of one of the iconic heroes because […] that’s just part of Battlefront’s DNA.”
In the trailer it was revealed that Iden will have a droid. According to Thompson, this droid will offer players a way to customize their play style while they’re playing as Iden. For example, he says it will offer them choice when it comes to how they engage in a combat scenario so we imagine the droid will be able to be used as back up in combat, as a scout or perhaps even as a tool for hacking.
Considering the Motive development team has been brought in to work on the single-player specifically, there’s little chance of it feeling like a tacked on afterthought and we’re excited to see how this will play out.
It’s been confirmed that Battlefront 2 will explore characters, locations and events from the new films and prequel trilogy as well as the original trilogy.
That means that in addition to characters like Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Han Solo and Boba Fett, players will get to take control of characters such as Rey, Kylo Ren, Yoda and Darth Maul.
The other interesting addition in this iteration will be space battles. These will be developed by Criterion and will allow players to engage in epic dogfights over some of the most iconic battlefields in the Star Wars universe.
In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Star Wars Battlefront 2’s creative director Bern Diemer said that DICE wants to add depth the game’s multiplayer modes.
This time around Heroes will apparently not be all-powerful game changers as they once were. As well as making Heroes more present and not restricted to a “lucky few” players, DICE will add something called team play to make sure that those playing as standard troopers are not at an unfair advantage.
Team play is based on classes and leveling and encourages players to join up with their friends in well-balanced squads in order to take down heroes.
Matt Webster revealed that there will be 4 Trooper classes which are differentiated by standard things like range and firepower.
