First look at ‘Star Wars: Battlefront’, coming this November

The latest trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit film fans right in the feels, but they’re not the only ones getting a big new experience in the far away galaxy this year.

EA’s anticipated reboot of the epic multiplayer shooter Star Wars Battlefront finally has a release date: November 17, 2015 for the PC, Xbox One, and PS4. The game is set during the original trilogy and features massive, 40-player shootouts. No Bothans died to bring you this information.

During a short presentation at the Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, representatives from DICE, the game's developer, showed off Battlefront for the first time since its unveiling at last year’s E3 show. But this time we got a glimpse of the actual gameplay rather than just glamour shots of the fancy environments.

Set on the forest floor of Endor, the hands-off demo showcased the frenetic action that made the original Battlefront games significant hits on the PS2 and Xbox.

A Rebel soldier blasts an Imperial baddie off a Speederbike. An AT-ST stomps through a clearing, only to be blown to bits by a fellow Rebel using jumpjets and a rocket launcher. Our hero earns a ‘Killstreak’ by taking down a few Stormtroopers, but meets his match when he bumps into an AT-AT Walker. Instead of pulling a Skywalker by slicing its underbelly with a lightsaber, a squadron of Y-Wings zoom by overhead and bomb it to scrap metal. We head into a base to catch our breath, but a certain black-masked asthmatic shows up, swats away blaster shots with his lightsaber, and ends the demo.

So yeah, it looks pretty awesome.

Update - EA just released this reveal trailer, which, while very cool, doesn't reveal actual gameplay. The demo I received did, however.

DICE also detailed a few key features:

You can switch views.
Battlefront can be played as either a first- or third-person game. Players will be able to switch the camera at will during play.

You can play as Luke, Vader, and other heroes and villains.
Power-ups hidden around each map can grant really cool abilities – including the ability to play as a famous Star Wars hero or villain. DICE didn’t elaborate, but said that these effectively transform matches into “player-driven boss fights.”

You can play solo.
I don’t mean Han (though I’m sure he’s a power-up). I mean that while Battlefront is primarily a multi-player game, it will include an offline ‘Mission’ mode featuring challenges culled from the films.

You can partner up
A new buddy system lets you partner with a friend and share unlockable goodies. Plus you can spawn on each other when you invariably get sniped by a jerky Stormtrooper hiding in a tree.

You can fly ships.
Though we didn’t really see this in action, DICE confirmed that you’ll be able to pilot ships like X-Wings and Tie-Fighters. No word on whether or not this includes outer-space maps or just terrestrial ones.

It will let you visit a new planet before the film.
A few weeks after the game launches, EA will release “The Battle of Jakku,” a totally free piece of downloadable content set on Jakku, the desert planet referenced in the new Force Awakens trailer. The content is due out Dec. 8 (or a week earlier if you pre-order, because this is a video game in 2015), meaning gamers get to romp around Jakku a good 10 days before filmgoers.

Battlefront is the first game in a 10-year-deal between EA and Lucasfilm, who gave the developers full access to the Star Wars vaults. Rather than build iconic Star Wars machines and weapons from scratch, they used a process called ‘photogrammetry’ to exhaustively digitize the original models used by Lucas.

“When you use a lightsaber in the game, it means you’re using THE lightsaber,” said Niklas Fegraeus, the game’s Design Director. “It’s the actual lightsaber used in the film.”

DICE also traveled to various Star Wars film locations around the world to help realize the environments, and was given the run of the famed Skywalker Sound to dial in the audio.

It’s a looker, that’s for sure, though it’s a little odd that they chose Endor to show off the game’s feature set. Like the Battlefield series on which it’s based, Battlefront’s traditionally been about big conflicts in wide-open areas, like Hoth. Endor’s gorgeous foliage and thick underbrush are a sight to see, but it feels decidedly less epic than what most folks are expecting out of a Battlefront game. We’ve still got a ways to go before it pulls into orbit, though, so I’m guessing we won’t have to wait long before Battlefront shows its size.

And frankly, that’s going to be a tough wait, because so far, Battlefront looks impressive. Most impressive.

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