Star Wars Battlefront Gameplay Details And Images Emerge, Battle Of Jakku DLC Announced

The first official gameplay details and screens of DICE and EA’s Star Wars-themed shooter have emerged.

According to previewers, Star Wars Battlefront will be a first-person and third-person shooter — players can switch between the two points of view freely — with a focus on online multiplayer in up to 40-player battles. No traditional single player campaign will be present, but offline missions inspired my moments in the films can be tackled solo or cooperatively, either online or split-screen. They’ll offer high replay value with various difficulty levels.

Gameplay consists of many familiar elements from the movies, including vehicles like AT-STs, AT-ATs, Tie Fighters, Snow Speeders, X-Wings, Y-wings, and the Millenium Falcon; maps like the forest moon of Endor, Hoth, and Tatooine; and weapons like blasters and thermal detonators. Power-ups like shields and explosives will add an extra layer of gameplay. In a demo at the Star Wars Celebration, Rebels were able to use a bubble shield to protect themselves from blaster fire, for example.

In-game models are nearly perfect replicas of real life props thanks to a technique called photogrammetry, which turns photographs of objects into 3D models inside the Frostbite 3 engine which will power Battlefront.

Battles will consists of ground-based and vehicle-based combat that include dogfighting, but no dedicated space combat. The game will feature a “Partner” system that buddies up two players, forming a tag-team that plays together, spawns on each other, and can always see each other. These teams will share unlocks like weapon skills. Players will be able to customize characters with gear, weapons, and abilities.

DICE General Manager Patrick Bach says Star Wars Battlefront was designed much differently than previous Battlefield titles in their portfolio. Instead, the studio hoped to recapture the core of what makes Battlefront Battlefront. “The goal has never been to replicate or mimic another shooter,” he told Polygon.

Though the game is primarily centered around the original Star Wars trilogy, it will get a movie tie-in to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, releasing a few weeks after Battlefront’s November 17 launch, with the Battle of Jakku DLC – Jakku being the planet that has been featured in both The Force Awakens teasers released thus far. The expansion is free, will include two maps based on locations on the planet, and will be available on December 1 for those who have pre-ordered Star Wars Battlefront and December 8 for those who have not.

…the Battle of Jakku [is] the pivotal moment when the New Republic confronted key Imperial holdouts on a remote desert planet on the Outer Rim. Taking place in the aftermath of the Rebel victory in the Battle of Endor, players will experience the events that created the massive, battle-scarred landscape of Jakku in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Battlefront

A DICE producer who goes by the name TheBikingViking on Reddit has confirmed that the game won’t support Battlelog and won’t launch from a browser on PC. “Going forward, the intention is definitely that Battlelog is a Battlefield franchise service,” he said.

Star Wars Battlefront launches on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on November 17. The shooter’s official gameplay reveal will debut on Star Wars’ official channels at 10:30AM PST today.

Here are six brand new gameplay screenshots that were unveiled earlier today:

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