All Articles: Star Wars: Battlefront II

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

Electronic Arts unveiled Star Wars: Battlefront II during today’s festivities at the Star Wars Celebration, and the game’s first trailer gave us our first look at its Empire-centric single-player campaign.

Iden Versio is an Imperial special forces officer who was on the forest moon of Endor when the second Death Star was destroyed. As the commander of Inferno Squad, Versio escapes from custody and vows to avenge her Emperor. Players will follow Versio from Return of the Jedi to The Force Awakens as she battles the Rebels over a span of 30 years.

In addition to the single-player campaign, EA has major ambitions for Battlefront II’s multiplayer modes, which will include “intense dogfights in space” for the first time. The game’s “galactic-scale space combat” will be developed by Criterion, and they are adding “refined handling, weapons, and customization options” to every ship in the game.

Battlefront II will also include ground-based maps from all three eras of Star Wars including “Yavin 4’s jungle canopies, the spaceport town of Mos Eisley, and Starkiller Base.” And players will be able to play as iconic characters like Yoda and Darth Maul (or regular ground troopers) in these 40-player skirmishes.

Star Wars: Battlefront II will be jointly developed by DICE, Criterion, and Motive Studios, and will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on November 17. Fans who pre-order the Elite Trooper Deluxe Edition will be able to get the game three days earlier, and unlock upgraded versions of all four trooper classes, bonus weapons and modifications, and exclusive skins for Rey and Kylo Ren based on their costumes from Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

EA has also opened the doors to Star Wars: Battlefront II’s official website, which includes a glimpse at more concept art from the game.

After a seemingly neverending stream of commentary from their executive officers, Electronic Arts has finally announced that we’ll get our first look at Star Wars: Battlefront II during this year’s Star Wars Celebration.

Fans will converge on Orlando next month for Star Wars Celebration 2017, which begins on April 13th. The four-day festival will publicize the upcoming Star Wars: The Last Jedi, as well as honor the 40th anniversary of the original Star Wars. And on April 15, at 2:30 PM (Eastern Time), Electronic Arts will host a panel for “The Galaxywide Premiere of Star Wars: Battlefront II.”

If you’re unable to attend this year’s Star Wars Celebration, you’ll still be able to view the trailer at StarWars.com (and eventually, on YouTube). And don’t forget, the publisher will deliver even more news about the shooter sequel at their EA Play event during this year’s E3 Expo.

Electronic Arts presented their quarterly financial report to investors yesterday, and once again, CEO Andrew Wilson delivered a progress report for Star Wars: Battlefront 2. Wilson reiterated that the game is still on track for a Fall 2017 launch, while also promising to include “more locations” and “more heroes and characters [from] multiple Star Wars eras.”:

We’re thrilled to bring a new Star Wars Battlefront game to fans worldwide in 2017 holiday season. In the past two years, Rogue One and The Force Awakens have opened new storylines and captured the imagination of hundreds of millions of Star Wars fans. We’ve listened closely to our passionate Star Wars: Battlefront community and have expanded our existing game with more great content and experiences since its launch. As that game continues to thrive, we have also heard our players’ desire for even more depth and progression.

Our next Star Wars Battlefront will be even bigger, taking players into more locations and allowing them to play with more heroes and characters across multiple Star Wars eras. There will be new ways to play, including an all new single-player campaign and much, much more that we are excited to share with our players in the months ahead. To build a game of this magnitude, we’ve brought together three great studios, DICE, Motive and Criterion, and allowing their areas of expertise to deliver an amazing experience in the next Star Wars Battlefront.

Towards the end of the report, Wilson also said EA is actively listening to fan feedback and that he believes the new single-player campaign is “very, very exciting”:

This is going to be a big game. The first game was very well received. It was widely regarded as a game that fulfilled people’s Star Wars fantasies in ways they could never imagine. But it was also a game where people asked for a lot more, and a lot more depth and a lot more of the greatness of the game kind of embodied.

This game, again, is going to be in more locations, more game modes, more eras, more shifts, including a full single-player campaign which is very, very exciting. So, we have every reason to believe we’re delivering fans exactly what they’re asking for with respect to a Star Wars game.

With the game’s launch less than ten months away, we should be hearing a lot more about Star Wars: Battlefront 2 in the coming days.

With millions of copies sold and fans clamoring for a sequel, Star Wars: Battlefront has been an extremely successful gamble for EA and DICE. But while players are eager to experience a followup, they’ve also pestered DICE to add a single-player campaign to the multiplayer shooter. Yesterday, the developer strongly hinted at some progress on that front in a new sit-down with Eurogamer.

DICE Producer Paul Keslin revealed that DICE has used the Death Star and Rogue One expansions to inject “a bit of narrative” into the first Battlefront, and that people are responding well to it:

The other big request, of course, was for a campaign – something that’s already been locked in for Battlefront 2, and something that DICE has been making motions towards in its DLC for the first game. “Myself as a Star Wars fan, I want story, I want narrative, I want something I can play that immerses me in that world but gives me something to follow and chase,” says Keslin. “That’s actually what inspired us with the Death Star DLC and [the Rogue One DLC] – how we do add a bit of narrative to the multiplayer game? We know that players want that, we’re not able to give them a full-fledged campaign post-launch for Battlefront, but how can we scratch that itch a bit? It’s been received okay – I think some people appreciate it. We’re trying to address as many things as we can.”

Keslin went on to admit that DICE is currently working with Jade Raymond’s Motive Studios to ensure the single-player campaign in Battlefront 2 is up to par with the multiplayer portions:

“That’s a lot of what we’ve talked about in terms of DICE’s identity and how we approach games,” says Keslin. “We’re partnering up with some folks from Motive – they have their own take on how things are – but we have a very close relationship with them, and we want everything to feel like a coherent experience. We don’t want it where single player isn’t that great but multiplayer has this great thing and isn’t connected.”

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 will be released in Fall 2017, just ahead of the theatrical debut of Star Wars Episode VIII.

This past Summer, executives from EA confirmed that Star Wars: Battlefront 2 would be released sometime in 2017. Yesterday, during a quarterly financial report to investors, Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen confirmed the game will be available in Fall 2017.

“So we have talked obviously about the next Battlefront coming a year from now, and we’re working very hard on making sure that is an extremely deep and engaging offering,” Jorgensen said.

EA actually has multiple Star Wars games in development, and the publisher plans to release a new Star Wars game every year for at least the next three years.

Visceral Games will launch their Star Wars game in 2018, and it is widely believed to star Han Solo. And Repawn is working on a third-person Star Wars adventure that will feature Lightsaber duels in some capacity. It doesn’t have a release date yet, but it’ll likely launch in 2019.