EA Strikes Back with Star Wars Battlefront 2

As part of the Star Wars Celebration, Star Wars Battlefront 2 has been revealed.

After being leaked ahead of the official reveal, EA debuted a two-minute trailer for the game. Right off the bat, the trailer addressed a major criticism of the first game in its focus on a single-player campaign.

In Battlefront 2, players will take control principally of Iden Versio, a special forces Imperial soldier. After witnessing the destruction of the second Death Star, Versio vows to destroy the Rebel Alliance.

The Battlefront 2 campaign will span the gap between Return of the Jedi and 2014’s The Force Awakens.

Though Versio will be the main player character, the campaign will also see players take control of the likes of Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren at certain points.

The story that Battlefront 2 is teasing looks to be an interesting one. In particular, setting the game from an Imperial perspective could be a novel choice.

Aside from the campaign, the trailer also saw the announcement of a number of new features.

The multiplayer includes the whole Star Wars saga. This means characters and locations from across the films will be making an appearance. The trailer depicts Jedi Master Yoda squaring off with Darth Maul.

With the Star Wars saga spanning many generations now, the inclusion of all films is a welcome addition.

At the same time, Battlefront 2 is tweaking the multiplayer of the first game. Classes are now present, and vehicles and heroes are no longer power-ups. Rather, players will be able to earn them by completing certain goals within games.

The game will also be featuring the return of space battles, a much-loved feature of the original games absent in Battlefront.

All this seemingly addresses the key criticisms of the first game, much in the same way that Destiny 2 is doing.

Indeed, much can be made of the comparisons between Destiny 2 and Battlefront 2. Both their predecessors released in 2014 with a multiplayer focus that gained much backlash. Now, both are returning with a renewed emphasis on story and single-player content.

This said, some of the business practices remain for both games. Destiny 2 already has a season pass. Whilst Battlefront 2 will be locking off Last Jedi content to those who pre-order the game.

Can these two games overcome their predecessors’ negative reputation? 2016’s Titanfall 2 struggled after its predecessor’s failings, despite correcting many of the wrongs. This included incorporating single-player into the game.

With this in mind, 2017 will be an interesting year, if just for this alone. Whether the mistakes of 2014 will haunt the likes of Battlefront 2 and Destiny 2 will be interesting to see.

But with both games not releasing until later in the year, there is still plenty of time to wait and see how they pan out.

Watch the trailer for Star Wars Battlefront 2 here: