A closer look at 'Star Wars: Battlefront II's single and multiplayer modes
Anyone can be a hero in the Star Wars universe.
If there's an overriding philosophy behind Battlefront II, it's that. From the "untold soldier's story" in the story mode to the new ways the game lets you level up your profile, the idea is to create opportunities for every player to feel like a star -- at least some of the time.
"You have many, many, many parts that, in my opinion, make up a Star Wars story. You have blasters and ships, you have families, you have faith and the Force," said Bernd Diemer, creative director at DICE on Battlefront II.
"But for me what really ties it all together is this hero's journey. Even as a lowly trooper, you can evolve your character. You can get better. You can become the best trooper in the universe. And maybe, just maybe, that will give you the chance of taking out Darth Vader or Kylo Ren during a match -- and thereby become a hero to your fellow troopers."
Classes return to Battlefront
This thinking plays out in different ways across the various facets of Star Wars: Battlefront II. For multiplayer, DICE wants to get players invested by adding more depth into the game. Fortunately, it doesn't have to look very far; the studio's Battlefield series already delivers that kind of experience.
"DICE has nailed down this rock-paper-scissors sandbox environment where anything can happen at any second," Diemer said, referencing the way Battlefield's complementary soldier classes and vehicles help foster unscripted "holy sh*t" moments of the sort that are chronicled officially in dedicated YouTube playlists and unofficially, by fans, across the internet.
"We introduce classes in this game. So we have very distinct playstyles associated with classes to start with. Each trooper has a little bit more personality," Diemer explained.
"You grow as a trooper by collecting Star Cards, finding new gadgets, upgrading your weapons, customizing your weapons. And these ... game mechanics, they apply to all parts of the game."
Your individual trooper classes level up -- much like they do in the Battlefield games -- as do heroes, ground vehicles, and space ships -- there's apparently a much stronger emphasis in Battlefront II on space combat, thanks to PSVR X-Wing Mission developer Criterion's assistance.
A hero for the Empire
This thinking holds true in the story, with its focus on Iden Versio. The leader of an elite Imperial ground-and-space commando unit called Inferno Squad, Versio and her journey tap into exactly the sort of rank-and-file soldier-turned-hero story the Motive Studios team -- which is handling Battlefront II's campaign -- wants to tell.
"It picks up right after Endor," Motive Game Director Mark Thompson said, referring to Return of the Jedi's concluding moments. "When we started to talk to Lucasfilm, we [realized] that the war didn't end then, and there are a whole bunch of interesting stories that could be told in this time period."
Based on what's been revealed so far, we know Versio and at least some portion of Inferno managed to escape Endor. Their pursuit for vengeance after the death of Emperor Palpatine leads them to connect with the Imperial remnant forces that we see 30 years later in the new movie trilogy's First Order.
This whole package -- Versio, Inferno, the nascent First Order -- represented an opportunity for Motive to shine a light on a little-seen aspect of the Star Wars universe: the heroes of the Galactic Empire.
"You hear a lot about the Sith Lords and the Force users, but in terms of boots on the ground soldiers, who are the heroes?" Thompson asked.
Before Motive could even ask that question, the team had to geek out. They turned to the various novels, comics, and other texts produced under the Lucasfilm banner in the year-long run-up to The Force Awakens' release.
During this process, one novel in particular stood out. Battlefront: Twilight Company, which was based on DICE's 2015 game.
"Twilight Company was one of the first things that piqued our interest in telling a soldier's story," Thompson said. "Because obviously it was a novel about Battlefront, but there were some really interesting chapters told from the perspective of an Imperial Stormtrooper, talking about how they felt being inside the Empire."
With an idea in their heads, a small crew from Motive sat down with the story team at Lucasfilm. There was an expectation going in that the meeting would amount to a tutorial -- a lengthy Powerpoint breakdown of how video game storytelling works in the context of Star Wars.
Instead, the Motive people found themselves sitting with creative collaborators.
"We sat down in the room and quickly realized that this ... was going to be a two-way exchange of ideas from passionate people who believe in Star Wars storytelling," Thompson said.
Lucasfilm was intrigued by the pitch. Books like Catalyst and comics like Shattered Empire had already been peering into unseen corners of the Star Wars universe. Zeroing in on the heroes of the Galactic Empire, post-Empire, lined right up with that approach.
"We were already pulling on a lot of interesting connective tissue [from Lucasfilm's perspective]," Thompson said. "So we created this space where Inferno Squad and a hero like Iden could exist."
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
