With the news that Star Wars: Battlefront 3 may be releasing sooner than we’d all anticipated, now seems like the perfect time to discuss what I want to see in the hugely anticipated title. As a fan of the series, I Force Jumped all around my house when the game’s teaser trailer was revealed at E3, and immediately began thinking of all the features I’d want to see implemented in a next-gen Battlefront game. Here are the ones I’d be most excited to see.
1. Ground-to-space combat
The alpha footage of Free Radical’s canceled Star Wars: Battlefront 3 shows players able to battle it out on-foot before hopping into a Starfighter and engaging the enemy in space. I’d love to see fluid ground-to-space combat make its way into the upcoming Battlefront game, and I suspect new developers DICE are aware that the inclusion of this feature is a no-brainer.
2. Huge multiplayer battles
Your standard 12-on-12 or 8-on-8 multiplayer battles won’t do justice to the grand scale of the battles that took place in the Star Wars Universe. In an ideal world, DICE would be creating a competent MAG-esque 256 player Battlefront game, but as they previously stated prior to the release of Battlefield 3, quantity doesn’t always equal quality. However, as Battlefront will likely combine land, air and space battles, each match should feel like an intergalactic war, and a war isn’t fought between 30 people.
3. Interesting on-foot combat
Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was released in a pre-Gears of War era, when covering systems were very rarely implemented in third-person shooters. Now that covering systems are practically mandatory, we should expect to see one in DICE’s Battlefront, too. On top of this, I’d also like to see expanded and more detailed environments to fight in – while it was fun battling it out in familiar locations such as Mos Eisley and Hoth, due to the limitations of technology at the time, they felt lifeless and not that much fun to explore. Thankfully, due to the the power of next-gen consoles and PC’s, the environments in the new Battlefront game should go some way to replicating their film equivalents, and should ensure that players will be more keen to run ‘n’ gun this time around, rather than simply hopping into a vehicle and taking to the sky.
4. Jedi/Sith clashes
While the addition of Jedi and Sith in Battlefront 2 was fun, when you took control of Obi-Wan Kenobi or Yoda you didn’t really feel like you were playing as a Master of the Force, but rather an ADD-inflicted super-child, as you spent more time giddily bouncing around the map more than you did actually being useful. In the new Battlefront game, Jedi and Sith should make a comeback, only this time they should actually control like Jedi and Sith. During the middle of each match, one randomly selected player from each team should be given the opportunity to take control of a lightsaber-wielding Jedi Master/Dark Lord, and rather than simply using their powers to deplete the enemies forces, they should be tasked with taking out each other. Certain areas of each environment would be manipulated using the Force, and the whole tide of the battle could change defending upon how destructive these battles are. Whoever wins this 1-on-1 duel would then be awarded a bundle of extra points, or the equivalent, for their team.
5. Integration of the Expanded Universe
The Star Wars Expanded Universe is huge and filled with battles worth bringing to Battlefront. While the game’s multiplayer component will obviously be the centre of attention, we shouldn’t forget that there is a big opportunity for DICE to do something great with the single-player aspect of the game, too. History may show us that it’s unlikely this will be the case, but I still hold out hope that the new Battlefront will take us on a journey through Star Wars’ long history, from the collapse of the Infinite Empire and the Rakata, through the Jedi Civil War, the Battle of Yavin and the collapse of the Galactic Empire.
