A few short hours before EA’s 2017 press conference kicked off, twelve minutes of leaked Star Wars Battlefront II footage showed up online.
It shows off gameplay by three heroes — Darth Maul, Rey, and Boba Fett — with Han Solo zipping by in the background. Darth Maul has his iconic dual-bladed lightsaber and what appears to be a Force choke move, while Rey has Anakin’s blue lightsaber, which, in Star Wars mythos, was handed down to Luke Skywalker before falling down a chute on Bespin. In The Force Awakens, this same lightsaber is handed to Rey from Maz Kanata, and one of the film’s biggest lingering mysteries is how Maz acquired it.
Boba Fett seems to play very similarly to how he did in the first Battlefront, though, unless my eyes are deceiving me, it appears some texture updates may have been applied to his pants. He also seems to have traded his flamethrower for the ability to see through walls (perhaps this is tied to Star Cards?).
It also looks as if heroes are tied to a point system rather than a power-up system like they were in EA’s previous Star Wars Battlefront game. Many fans complained about the way the power-ups worked, so hopefully this new point system will make things a bit better for players.
It seems to have come from a YouTuber called NukemDukem, who gives credit to another YouTuber by the name of Axrora — though the video showed up on Vimeo by a user called Mar Tiger. A tag at the beginning of the video says “Sponsored by EA.” We’re not sure how that ended up happening, but it reminds us of Battlefront II‘s previous footage leak, which happened just a few days before the game’s first official trailer was revealed. It makes us wonder if EA is intentionally leaking footage, or if there are just plenty of “leakers” tied to this franchise.
Update: The original video was taken down, but NukemDukem’s official video has since been uploaded. The quality is higher than on the leaked version. You can view it below.
