In his review of DICE's Star Wars Battlefront in late 2015, Andy suggested the multiplayer-focused FPS "brilliantly" captured the essence of the Star Wars universe, but that "beneath its cinematic flair lies a pretty generic multiplayer shooter." With Battlefront 2 due in less than seven months, the game's creators have now opened up about how these criticisms will be addressed in the sequel.
Specifically targeting depth and personalisation in Battlefront 2's multiplayer, DICE's creative director Bernd Diemer told PC Gamer that it wants to boost heroes' presence this time round so that getting them is "not restricted to the lucky few" or the best players in the game.
"[They tended in Battlefront 1] to drift towards players with the most kills or lucky players, because that's how it goes in these games," says Diemer. "We said, no, we want something that makes it more likely that more players will experience that. So, cool idea. What happened then is, we had more heroes in the match at the same time, and that meant the troopers were kind of becoming the fodder. As a single trooper, it's very difficult to stand up against a hero—much less two.
"We thought, how can we give you more tools so you're able to hold your own against a hero, at least for a certain time? And the best answer we could come up with was team play. How can you make team play more attractive? And the obvious answer is by classes, because it's so natural that if you're playing classes, you look for your buddies so you have a good mix of what you together feel comfortable playing."
Diemer continues, suggesting this change will allow players to stand up to heroes by forming squads with friends and levelling up your trooper. In turn, heroes are no longer guaranteed be to all-powerful game-changers.
In a bid to boost personalisation and depth further, Battlefront 2 will also introduce abilities and gadgets. "Adding more depth was one of the first things that we decided we wanted to do," Dimer adds. "For the different items in the game and different categories, we decided to come up with different methods of how we do that. And for troopers, if you think about a trooper who doesn't really have a personality because you as a player step into the boots of a soldier, you are yourself. You don't have names. What you want to do is give your trooper a little bit of personality.
"And for that, you need to be able to customise them in some way so it feels right. I really like using grenades, so I might try to pull my class a little bit towards my favourite toy or my favourite gadget."
Star Wars Battlefront 2 is due November 17, 2017. Here's everything we know so far.
