Star Wars: Battlefront

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Star Wars: Battlefront
Xbox Series X/S
First releaseStar Wars: Battlefront
September 21, 2004
Latest releaseStar Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection
March 14, 2024

Star Wars: Battlefront is a series of

LucasArts with Star Wars: Battlefront, developed by Pandemic Studios for LucasArts. The game received positive reviews and sold well. In 2005 Pandemic developed a sequel, Star Wars: Battlefront II
, which was also critically and commercially successful.

The games were followed by Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron (2007) and Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron (2009) for handheld game consoles and Star Wars Battlefront: Mobile Squadrons (2009) for mobile devices. LucasArts made several attempts to develop a third major Battlefront game but no projects were released before The Walt Disney Company's acquisition of LucasArts. Subsequently, Electronic Arts acquired an exclusive license to develop console Star Wars titles from Lucasfilm, leading to the development of a reboot, titled Star Wars Battlefront from developer DICE, which was released on November 17, 2015. A sequel, Star Wars Battlefront II, was released on November 17, 2017, and was co-developed by EA DICE, Criterion Games, and Motive Studio. A collection of the first two entries in the original series ported to modern platforms by Aspyr, titled Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, was released on March 14, 2024.

Gameplay

Release timeline
          
Star Wars Battlefront: Mobile Squadrons
Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015Star Wars Battlefront
2016
2017Star Wars Battlefront II
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection
Battlefront series logo until 2013

Games in the Battlefront series normally revolve around two armies – the

Resistance – fighting each other on various maps. Maps take place in the Star Wars galaxy, with battlezones varying in theme and size. Across the battlefield are multiple "command posts" (objectives) that act as spawn points, and can be controlled by either the player or the computer. Units can spawn from any friendly command post, and vehicles regularly spawn at their respective command posts when destroyed. Units can capture neutral or hostile command posts by approaching them and standing within the immediate vicinity for about 30 seconds. The time to capture quickens with more friendly units within the capture zone. Some vehicles act as mobile command posts, and must be destroyed as they can not be captured. On some maps (such as Hoth or Endor
), certain structures also act as command posts that can not be captured. Command post capturing works differently on certain campaign missions as well. Playable heroes and villains play a significant role in changing the course of battles.

The objective of most matches is to eliminate all of the opponents' reinforcement tickets or to capture the command points, to slowly chip away at their tickets. Reinforcement tickets are used whenever a unit is killed, or when one faction controls a majority of the command posts on the map (usually when the losing faction only has 2-3). Only one objective needs to be completed. When all command posts are captured, the team with no command posts has twenty seconds to recapture or neutralize an enemy command post. If the team cannot take over a post in this time, the match is over. Certain campaign levels and multiplayer have requirements that differ from the general game play, however the general structure remains the same. The game's "Conquest" mode is vaguely based on the Battlefield game mode of the same name.

Development

The first console games of the series were developed by Pandemic Studios, and since 2015, a second series of console Battlefront games has been developed by EA DICE. Battlefront II (2017) is the first in the series to accurately follow the canon of the films, while the games developed by Pandemic Studios were relegated to

Star Wars Legends
non-canonical status, along with all of the games in the series released before November 2015.

Star Wars: Battlefront (Pandemic Studios)

Star Wars: Battlefront

Star Wars: Battlefront is the first installment in the Battlefront series. It was released on September 21, 2004, with a Mac port by

Gungans on the Naboo
plains.

Star Wars: Battlefront II

Star Wars: Battlefront II is the second installment in the Battlefront series, released in Europe on October 31, 2005 – for the PlayStation 2, PSP, Xbox, and Windows – and in North America one day later. There are some significant differences between Battlefront and Battlefront II. Battlefront II includes playable Jedi characters, space battles, and story campaigns, as well as

Xbox Classics
and PlayStation Platinum game in Europe.

Battlefront II expands upon the original game's single-player experience with mission-based objectives drawn from the first six Star Wars films. It has a story-based campaign which revolves around the

Jawas on Tatooine, to earn 50 points first), Capture the Flag
(both with one and two flags), Assault (which, on Tatooine only, is also available as Heroes vs Villains, where one team plays as the heroes and the other one as the villains in a race to rack up points by defeating enemies) and space battles.

Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection

In February 2024, a collection of Star Wars: Battlefront and Star Wars: Battlefront II was announced for

Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. It features online multiplayer, a Galactic Conquest mode, an expanded Hero Assault mode, as well as additional characters and maps. It released on March 14, 2024.[1][2]

Reception

Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection had a lot of connectivity issues on its release, with Steam users reporting that the game has only three 64-player servers to host the nearly 9,000 players who were playing through Steam alone. This sparked a lot of controversy which lead to Aspyr releasing more servers a few hours after launch, however, problems were still persistent as the game mode "Heroes versus Villains" had issues where players could not join the Heroes side which made it so that there was no one to play against. [3] Causing the game to have a "Mostly Negative" rating on steam.[4]

When the game was released on Steam, It was not advertised as a full remaster of the game, but it needed nearly 70 GB of storage, when both original versions needed 12.39GB combined.[4]

Canceled sequels

Star Wars: Battlefront III

On September 29, 2006,

Office of Film and Literature Classification listing Star Wars: Battlefront III for the Nintendo DS with a PG rating (E10+ equivalent) for mild animated violence.[8] However, that same month, Free Radical Design announced that they lost the rights to develop Star Wars: Battlefront III; the game at that point had been in development for two years.[9] Several years later, Free Radical Design co-founder Steve Ellis said Battlefront III was "pretty much done" in 2008, but that it was effectively canned when LucasArts could not commit to "spend big" on marketing it.[10] However, GameSpot quoted an unnamed LucasArts employee involved with the project who said Free Radical could not devote sufficient resources to the game and regularly missed deadlines.[11] A former Free Radical Design employee said some of the technology Free Radical developed for the game, specifically the contiguous game environment from planet surface into space, "is dying with us".[12]

During and after the game's development, screenshots, and gameplay footage became accessible to the public. In December 2008, Star Wars character renders bearing a Battlefront III watermark surfaced from a laid-off Free Radical employee.[13] The following month, gameplay footage was leaked from a November 2008 Free Radical in-house showing of Battlefront III footage.[14] The footage was pulled from IGN after LucasArts demanded its removal.[15] On April 1, 2012, a user on the game journalist website Betagames discovered Star Wars models and textures buried in Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City's archives; PC Gamer's Tom Senior speculated that these could have been from Battlefront III.[16] Also in April 2012, Past to Present revealed pre-alpha footage of Free Radical Design's Battlefront III.[17] YouTube videos showing the game's rough state received media attention from outlets such as Joystiq,[18] Kotaku,[19] and Shacknews.[20]

Star Wars: Battlefront Online

Star Wars: Battlefront Online was rumored to be the next installment in the series. On January 28, 2010, Kotaku reported that SOCOM developer Slant Six Games was working with LucasArts to develop an online-only Battlefront title due in 2011. The game was said to be released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It was also stated that this game may have been the source of the Star Wars: Battlefront 3 concept art renders.[21] However, the game has been canceled after the studio was unable to meet its 2010 release deadline.[22]

Star Wars: First Assault and Version Two

Star Wars: First Assault was to be a downloadable multiplayer shooter for Xbox Live Arcade.[23] Digital Trends speculated that Star Wars: First Assault might help LucasArts recover some of their previous investment in Battlefront III and other projects in the franchise.[24] Speaking to Kotaku an anonymous insider noted that the game was to be "step zero" towards a third Battlefront game.[23] When footage of the game was leaked onto YouTube Tech site TechnoBuffalo noted that the gameplay very closely resembled that of the Call of Duty franchise.[25] Alongside First Assault, LucasArts was also working on a separate game titled "Version 2", which was, reportedly, a code name for Battlefront III.[26]

Star Wars Battlefront IV

In 2018, concept art surfaced of a canceled Battlefront IV, rather than attempting to fit within the previous games and films' continuity, concept art showed the game was meant to focus on an alternate reality where

Anakin Skywalker.[27]

Handheld and mobile only games

Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron

Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron is a handheld game released in North America on October 9, 2007, and in Europe three days later. The game was released only for the PlayStation Portable. Renegade Squadron is also available in a bundle pack with the then-new white PSP redesign featuring Darth Vader on the back.

Aside from new heroes and vehicles, such as the Millennium Falcon, a new feature is the ability to create a character, allowing the player to adjust the character's features such as weapon, appearance, and speed. However, the character will be vulnerable due to the lacking of certain aspects that will be replaced by others. For example, the character may be fast but weak or have good weapons but no stamina and speed. Before the game's release, LucasArts had stated that over one million different customizable options would be present. Another new feature allows players to enter asteroid bases on some space maps.

Commander Col Serra describes the forming of Renegade Squadron in the beginning cutscene of campaign. Then the player starts a series of missions ranging in objectives while including cutscenes between each mission. The final mission includes the

Battle of Endor, in which the objectives are similar to the footage of Return of the Jedi
.

Star Wars Battlefront: Mobile Squadrons

Star Wars Battlefront: Mobile Squadrons

THQ Wireless.[29] It was released on April 2, 2009.[30]
The game features a persistent online community, and has three character classes. The gameplay is a first person perspective shooter that can use the touch features of a phone, although the player has no control over movement.

Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron

Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron was released on November 3, 2009, for the PlayStation Portable and the Nintendo DS.[31] This marks the third Battlefront game on the PlayStation Portable and the first on a Nintendo console. The game was originally discovered through its ESRB rating on the official ESRB website which has since been taken down. It follows in the same vein as its predecessors with space, land and new air battles. Elite Squadron is most notable for featuring simultaneous space and ground battles in Instant Action, and is the only game in the series with this feature. Players usually play in a third person perspective, but in the PSP version, they can also switch to a strategy based mode where they may build troops and upgrade armies.[32]

Star Wars Battlefront (EA DICE)

Star Wars Battlefront (2015)

At an

The Force Awakens; as a result, the hero and villain roster is also limited, at launch including only Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, and Boba Fett. Free downloadable content (DLC) for the game was released in December 2015, featuring the planet of Jakku with two new maps and a new multiplayer game mode. The game also features both first and third-person gameplay perspectives, similar to its predecessors. A gameplay trailer involving the Hoth battle debuted at E3 on June 15, 2015.[34]
The game features a pseudo-campaign — a cooperative experience allowing the player to experience gameplay with one or two players and computer-controlled allies and opponents.

"Outer Rim" is the first DLC pack for the game and was released on March 22, 2016. It adds new heroes

Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)

Blake Jorgensen of Electronic Arts mentioned a sequel in November 2016,[37] and Star Wars Battlefront II was announced in March 2017.[38] The game was released on November 17, 2017.[39] Since the restructuring of the Star Wars canon, Battlefront is the first game with a storyline that is considered canonical to the film series.

Star Wars Battlefront II features both single-player and multiplayer game modes, a customizable character class system, and content based on all Star Wars movies up to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (with content for the other movies, as well as television series being added later on via free DLC). A Celebration Edition was released in December 2019. DICE announced that Scarif from Rogue One would be the last content update released for the game.

Canceled spin-off

In 2019, EA was in the process of developing a game code-named Viking, designed as a spin-off of the Battlefront series with

open-world elements. The game was originally planned for release in fall 2020, coinciding with the next generation of video game consoles, but was canceled in late 2019.[40]

Cultural impact

Fan-made sequel games

Galaxy in Turmoil

On January 25, 2016, Frontwire Studios began an attempt to produce an unofficial Battlefront installment called Galaxy in Turmoil. The fan made game was in production using Unreal Engine 4 and was based on the canceled Star Wars: Battlefront III by Free Radical Design.[41][42] Although early versions of the game contained assets from Free Radical Design, they soon became "place holders" as the full game planned to be released using assets and music made from the ground up. On June 4, 2016, Galaxy in Turmoil gained a distribution deal through Valve and was planned to be released for free on Steam which generated a fair amount of attention.[43]

On June 22, 2016,

Fair Use laws, legal conflict was avoided and the project was canceled. There is a playable alpha that contains assets from Free Radical Design that was released to the public then removed early within Galaxy in Turmoil's lifetime. Galaxy in Turmoil is now planned to be redeveloped as a brand new cyberpunk-themed[45] IP without any Star Wars references, but still with Battlefront III-inspired mechanics including space-to-ground battles.[44]

In December 2019, Frontwire Studios released a free demo and launched a Kickstarter in order to secure $500k for the development of the full game.[46] On March 22, 2022, Frontwire Studios announced that it had cancelled development on the game, citing a lack of funds, as well as the team going their own separate ways.[47]

See also

References

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  2. ^ Shutler, Ali (February 21, 2024). "Original 'Star Wars Battlefront' games being rereleased in new 'Classic Collection'". NME. Retrieved February 21, 2024.
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  4. ^ a b published, Joshua Wolens (March 14, 2024). "'Probably one of the worst launches of all time': Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection players tear into Aspyr for bugs, crashes, and 3 64-player launch servers for nearly 10,000 users". PC Gamer. Retrieved March 20, 2024.
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External links