By: Dominic Jones
EA has announced their expansion plans for the DICE produced video game Star Wars Battlefront. The plans include new maps, new outfits, and the introduction of daily challenges. Battlefront Senior Producer Sigurlina Ingvarsdottir made the announcement today on StarWars.EA.com. First he announced the free updates to the game, which will be coming tomorrow. They are,
- The Tatooine Survival map will now support the Blast, Droid Run, Drop Zone, Hero Hunt, and Heroes vs Villains multiplayer modes, and is called Raider Camp.
- New Hoth-themed outfits for Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, both of which will be available to all fans when they play as these two iconic characters on the Hoth – these were unlocked by our players for completing our Heroes’ Holiday community mission last month.
- We are giving players the ability to create Private Matches, which makes playing with friends even easier.
- The introduction of Daily Challenges and Community Events. These are designed to rally the Community around certain goals and objectives, giving players the chance to earn credits and unlocks even faster. We'll have more news regarding Community Events and Daily Challenges in the days ahead.
- And of course, we are also including some overall balancing tweaks to both weapons and multiplayer modes.
In addition, he laid out EA's plans for the first three expansion packs (announced with the game's release and already purchased by anyone with a Season Pass) which will be made available during 2016. This includes the exciting news that maps on Cloud City (Bespin) and the Death Star will be added to the game this year. According to Ingvarsdottir, here's how the releases will play out,
- Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Outer Rim (March 2016) - Fight among the factories of Sullust and battle within Jabba the Hutt's palace on Tatooine
- Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Bespin (Summer 2016) - It's hunt or be hunted in this action-packed experience set in the Cloud City of Bespin
- Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Death Star (Fall 2016) – That’s no moon! One of the most iconic locations in the Star Wars universe makes its debut in Star Wars Battlefront.
- Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Expansion Pack 4 – Title TBA (Early 2017) – We will have more details to share about this exciting new expansion pack in the coming months.
The announcement of the Death Star maps definitely seems like a great way for Battlefront to tie in with the December release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which will tell the tale of how the Rebels stole the Death Star plans. Maybe the expansion, which comes out in Fall 2016, will feature some Easter Eggs from that film. It might have also been a reaction to fan outcry when it was announced last summer that the Death Star would be among many elements of the Star Wars saga that were being omitted from the game. If that's the case, it's nice to see they listened to fans and are adding it to the game (it would be really nice if they continued to listen to fans and added Prequel era/Clone Wars content too!)
As for the other announced maps, Bespin and Jabba's Palace seem like pretty cool additions to the game. However, I'm a little surprised to hear that there is no The Force Awakens content being added before 2017 (at the earliest). I was expecting one o the first expansion packs to feature Takodanna or Starkiller Base, but maybe they were holding off until 2017 to tie in with the release of Star Wars Episode VIII.
Are you excited about the upcoming Battlefront updates and expansions? And what other planets from the Star Wars universe would you like to see added to the game in future expansion packs? Let us know in the comments.
Follow The Star Wars Underworld on Twitter @TheSWU for more updates about this story and other breaking Star Wars news.
13 comments:
Post a Comment