We’ve seen very little of Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) thus far, but the thirty seconds or so we have seen is pretty compelling. It’s basically confirmed at this point that we’ll be seeing three eras worth of content instead of just one, and that there will be a single-player campaign.
But some of the environments shown in the trailer look awfully familiar.
For example, the first shot is very clearly Endor, which was created in excruciating amounts of detail for Star Wars Battlefront (2015). In fact, there were several maps that took place on this forest moon, and all of them were breathtaking.
Just after that, there’s a quick shot of a TIE fighter flying through a field of space debris. This looks eerily similar to the Death Star space battle map from Battlefront‘s third expansion.
And then we see a quick shot of what is unmistakably the battle of Hoth, with its snowy plains and lumbering AT-ATs in the background.
One thing to point out here is that we see a soldier riding a tauntaun — which would make an incredible addition to EA’s Battlefront series (these furry guys were rideable in Pandemic’s Battlefront games).
Considering these are some of the most recognizable battles in the entire Star Wars franchise, it would be strange to not see them represented at all. I’m just wondering if we’ll get slightly updated versions of old maps or completely new maps set in the same environments.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing some of this content get reused. The map design in 2015’s Battlefront game was incredible, though tragically under-praised. If the new map rotation is decent, say 15-20 maps or so, having 5 or 6 additional maps from Battlefront 1 might actually be a welcome addition to bulk out that map selection even further.
But if a majority of the content is recycled from the previous game, it could be a pretty big problem, especially since the buy-in is likely to be pretty steep.
Lack of content was probably the loudest and most unanimous complaint about the previous game, so I’m going to remain optimistic that this sequel will deliver a heaping buffet of the stuff to make up for its past mistakes.
