After a leak of its reveal trailer earlier this week, EA have officially announced that Star Wars Battlefront II will be launching on November 17. Now including characters from The Force Awakens and (potentially) Rogue One, Battlefront II hopes to address many of the problems fans had with EA’s Battlefront and provide the best multiplayer Star Wars experience since the original Star Wars Battlefront II by Pandemic.
For more fun in a galaxy far far away, check out this list of the best Star Wars games on PC.
One of the biggest complaints about Star Wars Battlefront was the lack of a single-player campaign. Not only does Battlefront II have a fully fleshed out single-player campaign, but it hopes to show what happened to the Empire following the destruction of the second Death Star. The campaign has players taking the role of Iden Versio, the commander of the Imperial black ops team Inferno Squad. Based on the trailer, Battlefront II’s campaign flips the script on the usual Star Wars formula, by having the Empire play the role of the plucky heroes who must band together to strike back against the Rebellion. Inferno Squad’s story spans over 30 years in the Star Wars universe, with Versio and her team interacting with many key Star Wars characters in their quest to avenge the Emperor.
There is also a planned tie-in novel for Inferno Squad, which is set between Rogue One and A New Hope and has Versio and the rest of her squad hunting down Saw Gerrara and his band of Partisan fighters. Not only will this novel flesh out Versio’s past ahead of Battlefront II’s release, but it will help join up Rogue One with the rest of the original Star Wars trilogy.
As for multiplayer, Battlefront II keeps the player caps of the previous game, with 40-player ground battles and 24-player space battles. This time, maps will be present from all three Star Wars eras so expect locations like Kamino, Geonosis, Hosnian Prime, Scarif and Jedha to appear alongside the old favourites of Hoth, Tatooine and Yavin IV. Heroes from all three Star Wars era will playable as well, with the trailer showing Darth Maul, Yoda, Rey and Kylo Ren in the thick of battle. With Battlefront II’s launch near to the release of The Last Jedi, it is unknown whether any characters from Episode VIII will appear to tease fans about the upcoming film.
While console players will gain access to offline split-screen co-op, PC players will unfortunately not be able to play local co-op with a nearby buddy. By the looks of it, the co-op mode is similar to the missions found in the first Battlefront, with players being able to level up their characters by playing this offline mode. EA have not released any reasoning behind the PC not getting this local co-op mode, so expect some clarification in the future.
Now, the AT-AT in the room is if Battlefront II will have a season pass. The first Battlefront launched with a meagre map list, so having to buy a $60/£40 season pass for maps that should have really been in the full game was a major kick in the exhaust port for many. Luckily Battlefront II’s creative director Bernd Diemer seems to have put these fears to bed, by plainly stating in a Mashable interview that “we don’t have a season pass” for Battlefront II. According to Diemer, “season passes are not the best thing” for games like Battlefront as “the community fall[s] apart because there are simply not many people playing the different modes,” since they are locked behind a paywall.
Don’t get excited just yet though, as a statement from EA following Diemer’s remarks has clarified that while the company are “not ready to confirm any live service plans just yet”, they “heard the feedback from our Battlefront community loud and clear” about its previous season pass. By the sounds of it, Battlefront II’s creative team have yet to nail down their DLC plan but expect more news at E3 in June.
Star Wars Battlefront II launches on November 17.