Heralded by great fanfare and audience expectation, Star Wars: Battlefront is launching in the UK on the 20th of November for Xbox One, PS4 and PC, with it releasing on the 17th in the USA. This eagerly awaited 3rd edition in the Battlefront franchise will have no formal story mode, as is typical for most DICE developed games, but will instead featured “crafted missions” which can be played solo or with a friend via 2 player split screen or online co-op.
The maximum player cap for Star Wars: Battlefront will be 40 players, with various modes utilising various different player caps to suit the specific mode. This seems a bit of a downgrade from the usual 64 player cap of current generation Battlefield titles but with the possibility that players can both be battling on a planet’s surface while a space battle rages overhead, I imagine cuts have had to be made to ensure that the epic scale of fighting does not cause the game to lag horribly. You can also swap between third and first person view whilst fighting across various planets and you can look forward to customising your Stormtrooper or Rebel fighter in many ways.
As with previous Battlefront games, certain players will be able to take the role of heroes from the Star Wars canon, with Darth Vader and Boba Fett being officially revealed today. According to design director Niklas Fegraues, you can “Force choke the rebel scum” as well as carve them up with your lightsaber. I imagine this opportunity will be awarded to high scoring players as in previous Battlefronts and it may also translate to iconic vehicles in the series, with only one player being allowed to use the Millenium Falcon for example.
Also, as seems to be the trend with every triple A title nowadays, players who pre-order Star Wars: Battlefront will gain early access to the free Battle of Jakku map which launches on the 1st of December for people who preorder, and a week later for everyone else. The Battle of Jakku is a scenario which fills the void between the end of Return of the Jedi and the beginning of the Force Awakens, with players taking the role of New Republic forces attempting to quash the last Imperial holdouts in the Outer Rim. The map will show how the desert planet Jakku, shown in the Force Awakens trailer, became so battle scarred.
While I am incredibly happy with Battlefront’s return and pleased that DICE is holding the torch after Pandemic fell apart, the worrying legacy of Battlefield 4 hangs over the whole project. Hopefully, EA and DICE have learned from the disastrous launch of Battlefield 4 and will make sure this game is working properly upon release and does not take almost 2 years to become fully functional. Let’s just hope the Force is with this revival of the Battlefront series. Watch the trailer below and look out for more Battlefront news in the future:
